Lena Waithe x Refinery29 / Creative Director, Creative and Video / 2019
A four-part immersive video installation and special 29Rooms project created in collaboration with actor, producer and writer Lena Waithe that invited audiences to experience the dissonance of being Black in the United States.
The 6-minute experience begins with an archival clip of a James Baldwin speech before it transitions to Whitney Houston singing the national anthem at the 1991 Super Bowl. The song then movingly overlays over 150+ chronological found clips of Black protest, persecution, and progress, from the March on Washington to the premier of The Oprah Winfrey Show to President Barack Obama’s inauguration. The installation concluded in silence with the projection of the quote “They Tried to Bury Us, But Didn’t Know We Were Seeds.” by Dinos Christianopoulos.
Core Team: Michael Pigozzi (Experiential Design), Beth Carmichael (Production), Jon Bulette (Video Production), Sundi Lofty (Archivist), Lena Waithe (Creative Collaborator)