Black Madonna

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 Chocolate City refers to the once predominantly Black city of Washington, DC. With gentrification occurring rapidly in the city, many of its Black residents are being pushed into Maryland. This short video is a dedication to DC with the mention of Barry Farms, a former neighborhood of SE DC that was built post-Civil War for freed Blacks, that birthed the District’s music, Go-Go. Due to urban renewal, it has been torn down, and its residents forced to relocate.  

 The history and weight of oppression have left a feeling of drowning and suffocation that spreads across the African American community. Water is used in this video for the reasoning that this is where our ancestors' bodies lay and where we were taken from our homeland to another continent where our abuse, torture, and denial our of heritage began. Red is the theme of the blood spilled in building this country and the lives that have been taken by our oppressors. Blood that has split from the brutality of slave masters that have turned into a police force where the justice system systematically and institutionally targets African Americans since the creation and adoption of the 2nd and 13th amendment. Each image is simulated through the water to give the constant feeling many in the African American community feel every-time we look at our television, go outside our homes, and even investigate mirrors: fear and suffocation. Drugs are a gateway to relieve the drowning and suffocation we feel. We have been unable to breathe for a long time and still feel that we are drowning. This short video was part of an 

In this short experimental animation, the viewer goes on a whirlwind of the lens of Jeannetta. Jeannetta escapes from a nearby plantation following the North Star. However, on her quest and the whirlwind of slave catchers following her, she sees glimpses of the future that is not so different from the past. 

The Past is Still Here is a short experimental, abstract narrative in which illustrates how the past is still relevant to the present with slight name changes. Instead of slave catchers that target us, it is now the police with racially charged intentions and misconceptions. Jeanetta escapes in hopes of escaping her “present,” but only is reminded that generations later, not much has changed. The racism that is engraved into our institution has caused a repetition of events to occur and with the past still being present in current times, just with a different title.