VIDEO INstallation

LIKOUM, 2023

This two-channel video is the centerpiece of an immersive multimedia installation that premiered at the prestigious triennial Bay Area Now 9 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. It weaves together the threads of ancestral exploration, migration, and spirituality. The piece captures the emotional journey and labor involved in Robinson’s quest for identity and belonging, and ultimately invites viewers to explore her personal odyssey, emphasizing the fluidity of time and the importance of embracing one's roots. Its glitch-like qualities reflect Robinson’s ongoing process of comprehending and embodying her newfound knowledge, mirroring the complexity of identity and heritage in a modern world. The use of Super 8 film footage of the Ohio River, a location deeply significant place in the artist’s ancestry, overlaying 4K footage, is meant to show how the past continually and often unknowningly, intersects with the present.

The copper photogravure prints that accompany the installation serve as tangible documentation of Robinson’s spiritual encounters during a recent trip to Cameroon in early 2023 for a naming ceremony.

ENCODED, 2022

This three-channel video is driven by a collection of field recordings capturing moments from multiple sites around the globe connected to my ancestry. It is my attempt to return to the forgotten places in my family narrative. It begins with the crash of small waves hitting the rocks on the Ohio River, a borderline between North and South and an important location related to my ancestry in Kentucky and my family’s eventual migration North, across the river, to Ohio and then Chicago. The exact location is near the historic Anderson Ferry on the Ohio side of the river, across from Kentucky and was recorded in 2021. The sounds then move across the ocean to Senegal, following sounds recorded in March 2020 and even further, if you use your imagination, stretching back in time. We hear the waves crashing against the shore of Goree Island, the location of the Door of no Return, then we are surrounded by the sounds of the Adhan, or call to prayer, during the early morning in Dakar. The rhythm quickens as several members of a village in Casamance, Senegal, near the border of The Gambia, perform before a celebratory meal. The sounds then circle back, returning to Kentucky. The piece also features archival video including underwater footage of the sunken slave ship Henrietta Marie off the coast of Florida.

ELEGY FOR NANCY, 2022

Elegy for Nancy is the latest in a series of short video essays about my search for my ancestors, including the lost and fractured memories lost because of the passage of time and strategies for survival. This piece is my attempt to pay homage to my oldest known ancestor, a woman named Nancy who was born in the 1770’s or 80s, likely in Virginia, before migrating to Kentucky where she was enslaved. After largely following the stories of the men in this family line, I knew I had to turn my attention to her when first discovering her identity in 2021 following the discovery of early 19th century manuscripts. I have incorporated the texture of Super 8 film footage and archival film footage to do this and incorporate multiple rivers, including the Sacramento, Ohio and Ogun Rivers, as guides to evoke healing, creation and ancestral legacy.

Altar: Wenge Wood sourced West or Central Africa and Gaboon Ebony from West Africa, cotton bolls from a Black-owned farm in North Carolina painted with 24 ct gold leaf, water collected from the Ohio River, glass jar, cowrie shells covered with cyanotype portrait of an ancestor, terracotta bowls, from Senegal: cedar, soil, white hibiscus, chili peppers, baobab fruit and moringa seeds, indigo dyed cotton fabric

Credits: Indigo dyed cotton fabric meditation cushions made by Nicki Shockz
Glass Jar made by Jon Garfield

VIDEO ESSAY

MEDITATIONS ON MIGRATIONS, 2016-2022

A series of Super-8 short films filmed in Northern Kentucky and Southern Ohio tracing the footsteps of the Underground Railroad, while also documenting northern migration. I consider these films a glimpse into the past while navigating  through modern distractions, landscapes, and infrastructure.

VIDEO 1
Old Bracken County Jail
In October 1858 Juliet Miles and her children were imprisoned at Old Bracken County jail in Augusta, Kentucky when she traveled to Kentucky from Ohio to secure freedom for her children and was captured. She was found guilty for “enticing” her children to escape and was transferred to the Kentucky State Penitentiary where she remained until her death. Music: Dark Was the Night (Cold Was the Ground) by Blind Willie Johnson.

VIDEO 2
Flash
Unlocking memories while following the past.  - Augusta, Kentucky

VIDEO 3
Ripley, Ohio
Following the footsteps of escaped slaves in Ripley, Ohio, on a known escape route, directly across from Kentucky at the Ohio River.

VIDEO ESSAY

REVIVAL, 2021

6 minutes, 47 seconds

Commissioned by the San Francisco Art Commission for their 2021 exhibition Taking Place: Untold Stories of the City

At the center of a great deal of my current work is my great-great uncle William J. French and the circumstances of his controversial and problematic existence. William crossed the color line when he enlisted in the Army at the Presidio shortly before WWI and eventually became an officer. The discovery of his story is directly responsible for opening the door to my family learning the details of our ancestry: from Kentucky to Chicago and beyond. I look at William as my partner in my journey into the past, but I also want to try to understand the nuances of what led him to make the choices he made.

In 2010, several years after first learning about William, I was living in New York and decided to visit the Presidio to begin tracing his footsteps. I now live in San Francisco and was thrilled to discover a 1915 silent film, Jane’s Declaration of Independence, filmed at the Presidio. Was William one of the soldiers who were extras in the film’s scenes on the Army base? Revival is about that first visit to Presidio to learn more about him, the times he was living in and hopefully get a greater understanding of the choices he made in order to gain equal footing in America. The voiceover text is excerpted from an editorial about his death in the January 9, 1932 edition of the Chicago Defender. The soundtrack includes Castle House Rag composed by James Reese Europe in 1914 and Masquerade Rag an an original composition featuring trumpeter Mike Olmos and composed by Jacob Bloomfield-Misrach.

Video Essay

BEREA, 2021

4 minutes, 13 seconds 

In a years-long effort to connect to my ancestors after discovering my maternal family roots in Kentucky, Berea is a meditation on mining the past. The video essay highlights a desperation to excavate the lost memories of in my family’s history, including my great-great grandfather's years studying at Berea College shortly after the Civil War. The piece also contains archival audio and film footage that are used as an entry point into exploring and unearthing fractured memories. The archival content includes Oscar Micheaux’s 1920 silent film Within Our Gates, Learning to Live, a promotional film from Berea College in 1937, at a time when the school was segregated due to a 1904 law in Kentucky that forced the segregation of schools, and the audio of an interview with anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston.

DocumenTary (In-Progress)

Origins: A Migration Story and the Police State

The idea for this experimental documentary film originated in the UnionDocs Carceral Screens and the Abolitionist Imagination Collaborative Studio I was a part of in 2021. The film is currently in the research and early filming phase and hopefully will be released in 2025.

Video Essay

The Call, 2016

Anna French, a young African-American teacher from Kentucky, makes plans to participate in the Great Migration by moving to Chicago in 1917. She'll be leaving generations of pain, along with memories, behind as she chooses to forget her past when migrating north. 

The video essay is inspired by the large volume of letters written to northern newspapers by hopeful migrants throughout the South. It was filmed partially on Kentucky homestead where the filmmaker's ancestors were enslaved and also includes original 19th-century documents connected to those same family members. The video is an exploration into the relationship between migration and memory; how the intentional act of forgetting can be key to one’s survival to escape trauma, persecution, and prejudice.