Art & Art History
Voices: Arthur Jafa
Gallery 400 Lecture Room
400 South Peoria Street
Arthur Jafa (born 1960) uses film to investigate issues surrounding black cultural politics and black cultural nationalism. He is interested in ways in which black film can be used to investigate what he calls “Black Artificial Intelligence,” and to reflect black ways of life in the diaspora. Jafa has also developed an idea that he calls “Black visual intonation,” in which irregular camera rates and frame replication is used to create filmic movement which approximates black vocal intonation. Jafa’s cinematography work includes a collaboration with Julie Dash on Daughters of the Dust, a portrayal of a little-known Gullah subculture on a barrier island off the coast of South Carolina, which received the Sundance Film Festival Award in 1991. He also worked with Spike Lee on Crooklyn and with Manthia Diawara on Rouch in Reverse. His writings include the essay 69, published in Black Popular Culture (1992).