ABOUT MY WORK

As a bi-racial woman from South Dakota, questions surrounding identity and representation have always plagued me. I identify as black. But as a farmer’s granddaughter in the Bible belt, my “black” experience was strikingly different from the images of blackness I saw in the media. Whenever there was an image of us, it was almost always an image of people in crisis, a people who were demonized, stereotyped, and narrowly defined. Nothing fit the multi-dimensionality I saw among my family and friends, which left me to wonder how I fit in. There is a James Baldwin quote that I love, “Being white means you never have to think about it.” Which could probably be extended to “Being white and male means you never have to think about it.” As a woman of color in a predominately white space, I was not only forced to think about my race and gender all the time, but also the dichotomy between the way I experienced the world, and the way the world experienced me. My work has become my way of knowing and making sense of these contradictions.

My first feature, “Before the Fire,” is now streaming on SHOWTIME, and I am in post-production on my new documentary, “Rosebud,” which follows the lives of 3 Native American hip-hop artists on the reservation in South Dakota.

My clients include: Target, Snapchat, Google, Calvin Klein, GE, Narciso Rodriguez, The New York Times and more.