About the Artist
Jenn Nkiru is a British Nigerian filmmaker who received her MFA in film directing from Howard University, thus continuing a long lineage of image makers such as Ernest Dickerson, Arthur Jafa, Malik Sayeed, and Bradford Young who studied under the mentorship of Haile Gerima. At Howard, she was exposed to the breath of international art cinema as well as the rich and variegated tradition of cinemas of the black diaspora, their distinct experimentation with the politics of form and the careful crafting of a personal artistic voice. Her MFA thesis, the experimental documentary En Vogue, about New York’s voguing and ballroom subculture, was shot by Arthur Jafa and Bradford Young, whom she assisted in the production of Dee Rees’s Pariah. Nkiru wrote a number of music videos ideas for musicians such as Pharrell, Major Laser, J Cole, and Imagine Dragons and collaborated with Kamasi Washington in “Heaven and Earth” for whom she directed the video Hub-Tones as well as promotional clips such as Fists of Fury and Space Travelers Lullaby.In 2017, Nkiru wrote, directed, and produced a short film Rebirth Is Necessary, which won best documentary in the 2018 London Independent Film Festival, the Canal + award at the Clermont Ferrand Film Festival, the 2018 Voice of a Woman award at Cannes and was a nominee of the 2018 Best Short Film award at Sheffield International Documentary Film Festival. Additionally, the film was screened internationally at the Museum of Modern Art in Los Angeles (MOCA, LA), at the ICA in London, at the Rotterdam Film Festival in Amsterdam, and introduced the London premiere of Black Panther at the BFI. Nkiru has also curated AFROFREQUENCY, a series of screenings and talks for 4:3, which includes an interview with Janelle Monáe.
Nkiru is best known in popular culture for her work as the second unit director of visuals for The Caters’s "Apeshit" video (directed by Ricky Saiz), a production choice that is in line with Beyoncé and Jay-Z's history of employing black women directors (such as Melina Matsoukas and Ava Duvernay) in a white and male-dominated industry. She has continued her work with Beyoncé in a particularly visible commitment to community and creative collaboration by co-directing Black is King for the streaming platform Disney+ alongside seven other directors. The visual album was inspired by the new Lion King film that features fellow liquid blackness artist Donald Glover.
Across works, Nkiru is invested in integrating the agenda of the most radical work in Black Studies, particularly Black Feminist Thought, with experimental film and music aesthetics. Steeped in a simultaneously Pan-African and Afrofuturist sensibility, the Black Arts Movement and Black Power, as well as the desire to draw from her Nigerian roots, Nkiru’s work is also in dialog with the North American Avant-Garde (Maya Deren, in particular) and always firmly grounded in the history of black music –from Sun Ra to Pharoah Sanders, from Sarah Vaughan to Queen Latifah, from Alice Coltrane to Nina Simone. The relationship between visual, sound, and music, as well as movement and tone, are central concerns of her work, which, when possible, is shot in 35mm. She is inspired by Kahlil Joseph, for the way “he showcases black people, black experiences and spirituality in such a visceral way,” and finds Moonlight by Barry Jenkins to be indicative of the possibilities of black cinema: “to be black, to be layered, to be indie, to be arthouse, to critique gender and masculinity, particularly black masculinity – and for all this to be universal.”
AS TOLD TO G/D THYSELF, a film Nkiru co-directed as part of Ummah Chroma which includes Bradford Young, Terrence Nance, Marc Thomas, and Kamasi Washington, just premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
Her latest work, Black to Techno, commissioned by Gucci and Frieze, reclaims the black origins of electronic music genres in Detroit. It premiered on February 14 at Frieze LA.
liquid blackness in conversation with Jenn Nkiru
SELECTED WORKS
Producer
Killing in Thy Name (2021), dir. The Ummah Chroma
Rebirth is Necessary (2017)
En Vogue (2014)
Seed (2012), dir. David B. Godin
Director
Sixth Dimension: All Possibilities of Together & Apar
(the sixth episode of the second season of HBO’s Random Acts of Flyness) (2022)
OUT/SIDE OF TIME (5-channel video) (2021)
I am Beautiful (Facebook Campaign) (2021)
Black is King (Co-directed with other directors, including Beyoncé) (2020)
Black to Techno (Short) (2019)
As Told To G/D Thyself (Short) (as Ummah Chroma) (2019)
Fists of Fury (Music Video with Kamasi Washington) (2018)
Space Travelers Lullaby (Music Video with Kamasi Washington) (2018)
Hub-Tones (Music Video with Kamasi Washington) (2018)
Kong (Music Video with Neneh Cherry) (2018)
Apeshit, (Music Video with THE CARTERS)(Second Unit Director) (2018)
Rebirth is Necessary (Short) (2017)
Women are Present (Short)(2017)
En Vogue (Short) (2014)
Writer
Black to Techno (2019)
Rebirth is Necessary(2017)
Production Assistant, Photography
Pariah (2011), dir. Dee Rees, cinematography by Bradford Young
Curator
AFROFREQUENCY with 4:3 (2018)
Exhibition
Rebirth is Necessary (2017), 2-channel video, Institute of Modern Art, Australia, May 14- July 09, 2022
OUT/SIDE OF TIME (2021), 5-channel video, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, November 5, 2021- Ongoing
Rebirth is Necessary (2017), 2-channel video, The Store X 180 The Strand, London, October 2- December 15, 2019
SELECTED INTERVIEWS
Onapa, Emmanuel, Jenn Nkiru, and cktrl. “There Are Infinite Ways to Be Black’: Jenn Nkiru & cktrl in Conversation.” AnOther, September 27, 2022. https://www.anothermag.com/design-living/14394/jenn-nkiru-cktrl-in-conversation-south-london-black-joy
Edwards, Danny. “Six Things About… Jenn Nkiru.” shots, June 17, 2022. https://www.shots.net/news/view/six-things-about-jenn-nkiru.
Nkiru, Jenn. “Jenn Nkiru Interview - Film London Jarm Award 2020 Shortlisted Artist.” Film London, September 22, 2020. Vimeo video, 5:42. https://vimeo.com/460755053.
Maitland, Hayley. “’Black Is King’ Director Jenn Nkiru on the Symbolism of the ‘Brown Skin Girl’ Video.” Vogue, August 4, 2020. https://www.vogue.co.uk/arts-and-lifestyle/article/jenn-nkiru-black-is-king.
Parker, Rianna Jade. “Movement and Technology: Jenn Nkiru Interviewed by Rianna Jade Parker.” BOMB Magazine, October 9, 2019. https://bombmagazine.org/articles/movement-and-technology-jenn-nkiru-interviewed/.
McLean, Matthew. “Jenn Nkiru on ‘Black to Techno,’ the Fourth Film in Collaboration with Frieze.” Gucci Podcast. February 15, 2019. https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/gucci-podcast/id1378974511?i=1000429938230&mt=2
Little, Harriet Fitch. “Film-Maker Jenn Nkiru’s Brain-Bending Vision.” Financial Times, February 7, 2019. https://www.ft.com/content/05d2648a-292f-11e9-9222-7024d72222bc.
British Council. “Jenn Nkiru.” British Council, 2018. http://film-directory.britishcouncil.org/comment/spotlight/2018/jenn-nkiru.
Washington, Kamasi, and Jenn Nkiru. “Hub-Tones: Jenn Nkiru and Kamasi Washington in Conversation.” KamasiWashington, October 23, 2018. YouTube video, 2:45. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn851K1UgG8.
Hanan, Ali. “Director Jenn Nkiru on Greenlighting Projects, Life Without a Mentor and Her Love of 35mm.” The Drum, April 23, 2018. https://www.thedrum.com/news/2018/04/23/director-jenn-nkiru-greenlighting-projects-life-without-mentor-and-her-love-35mm.
Clarke-Brown, Tamar. “In Her Visions: Jenn Nkiru.” Protein Journal, December 7, 2017.
Okojie, Irenosen. “Litro #162: Literary Highlife | Interview: Jenn Nkiru.” Litro, May 8, 2017. https://www.litromagazine.com/interviews/litro-162-literary-highlife-interview-jenn-nkiru/.
SELECTED REVIEWS
Heyman, Nick. “In ‘Before Yesterday We Could Fly,’ Visions of a Fictive Black Future Take Flight at the Met.” The Toys Matrix, November 3, 2021. https://toysmatrix.com/in-before-yesterday-we-could-fly-visions-of-a-fictive-black-future-take-flight-at-the-met/.
Monem, Nadine. “The Black Ecstatic Cannot be Contained | Afro-Pessimism and the Critical Optimism of Childish Gambino and Jenn Nkiru.” Nadine Monem: Personal Website, April 14, 2020. http://www.nadinemonem.com/the-black-ecstatic-cannot-be-contained-afro-pessimism-and-the-critical-optimism-of-childish-gambino-and-jenn-nkiru/.
Zonneveld, Rolien. “Jenn Nkiru’s Art Is an Introduction to Cosmic Archeology.” i-D Vice Media Group, January 31, 2020. https://i-d.vice.com/en_uk/article/epgvk7/jenn-nkiru-interview-artist-ummah-chroma.
Benor, Dalya. “Meet the Director Behind Gucci’s Detroit Techno Documentary.” AnOther Magazine, March 13, 2019. https://www.anothermag.com/fashion-beauty/11590/jenn-nkiru-black-to-techno-gucci-documentary-detroit-music.
Metrópolis. “Rebirth is Necessary - Jenn Nkiru | 19/02/19.” Metrópolis, February 20, 2019. YouTube video, 2:22. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Kwcuur8cqs.
Reed, Ryan. “Kamasi Washington Creates Rhythmic Trance in ‘Hub-Tones’ Video.” Rolling Stone, October 17, 2018. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/kamasi-washington-hub-tones-video-739211/.
Gotrich, Lars. “With Help From Four Tet And 3D, Neneh Cherry Wraps ‘Kong’ In A Cool And Weary Wisdom.” NPR Music, August 1, 2018. https://www.npr.org/2018/08/01/634301768/with-help-from-four-tet-and-3d-neneh-cherry-wraps-kong-in-a-cool-and-weary-wisdo.
Whaley, Natelegé. “Meet Jenn Nkiru, Who Helped Direct Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s Grandiose Visual for ‘Apeshit.’” Mic, June 18, 2018. https://www.mic.com/articles/189858/meet-jenn-nkiru-who-helped-direct-beyonce-and-jay-zs-grandiose-visual-for-apeshit#.Zm1n8QzIx.
Okiti, Tega. “Inner Visions.” Sight & Sound 27, no. 6, (2017): 45–48.
SCHOLARSHIP
Knight, Christina. “Rebirth Is Necessary.” ASAP/Journal, b.O.s. 10.4 (2020). https://asapjournal.com/b-o-s-10-4-rebirth-is-necessary-christina-knight/.
Gunn, Jenny. “Intergenerational Pedagogy in Jenn Nkiru’s Rebirth is Necessary.” JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies 59, No. 2 (2020): 163-168.
Raengo, Alessandra. “The Heat is On.” Refract: An Open Access Visual Studies Journal 2, no. 1 (2019): 31-44.
Gunn, Jenny. “The Outside Meets the Institution: The Carters’ ‘Apeshit’ Video.” Black Camera 11, no.1 (2019): 385-398.
CONVERSATIONS
A Black Gaze: A Conversation Between Tina M. Campt, Jenn Nkiru, and Zoé Whitley. October 12, 2021. https://vimeo.com/636140856
Frequencies of Blackness: A Listening Session, A Conversation Between Tina Campt, Zara Julius, Jenn Nkiru, and Alexander Weheliye. November 20, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF5dL69w1kU
Film, Art, and Cosmic Archeology, A Conversation Between Jenn Nkiru and Amar Ediriwira. July 30, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JV9IliNvTHU
Jenn Nkiru In Conversation with Jheanelle Brown and Darol Olu Kae. July 22, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfZPjF1eQfY
Jenn Nkiru’s Pan-African Imagination: Black Studies as Aesthetic Practice: A Conversation Between Jenn Nkiru, Alessandra Raengo, Jenny Gunn, Jazmine Hudson. April 14, 2019. https://vimeo.com/366991749
4:3: An Evening with Janelle Monáe and Jenn Nkiru. November 11, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVDvALTgRWg
Jenn Nkiru Presents: New Transmissions, New Pathways (A Celebration of Established and Emerging POC and Women Artists). November 1, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v2Ie-nvSDI
AWARDS
63rd Grammy Award 2021 For Best Music Video—Brown Skin Girl, split with the other shortlisted nominees
Jarman Award 2020 – Black is Techno, split with the other shortlisted nominees
2019 Aesthetica Art Prize – Rebirth is Necessary