[ Video ]
to trust the ground might free us (begin again)
2024
Color Video, Sound
2 min, 30 sec excerpt of 12 min, 50 sec
This experimental film meditates on the reach towards liberation as an ongoing process through the language of landscape and the body, engaging the intersecting historical and contemporary threads linking the West African nation of Liberia and the United States through a visual and textual poetics. Inter-woven imagery of New England forests, Liberian cotton trees and historic sites such as Dozoa (Providence Island), the Atlantic Ocean, gesture, sun beams, color fields, Vai language logograms, and archival findings invite viewers to consider the multiple resonances of landscapes as sites of refuge, sites of violence, sites of reparation, and sites of healing.
Written, Directed & Edited / Sound, Composition & Vocals by Miatta Kawinzi
Filmed & recorded in: Monrovia, Liberia
Dozoa (Providence Island), Careysburg, Unification Park
Peterborough, New Hampshire | Brooklyn, New York
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Works Cited:
Historic Vai language logograms from Vai script recorded by Momolu Duwalu Bukele in the 1830s, Jondu, Liberia.
J.H.B. Latrobe and New York State Colonization Society. Excerpt, “Colonization and Abolition,” 1852. Retrieved from the Library of Congress.
Loring Whitman, Photograph, “Alternate view of Du River, Liberia,” 1926. Retrieved from A Liberian Journey.
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Gratitude to:
The Creator & The Ancestors
My Mama, Family & Friends
Mah Pepo & Liberians Everywhere
Earth, Wind, Water, Trees
This piece was created with artist residency, grant, and/or community support from: Smack Mellon, Archive Liberia, Jerome Foundation, MacDowell, Harpo Foundation, Residency Unlimited, and NYSCA/NYFA.
an offering for the ongoing reaching -