ABOUT AWANDE FILMS + RONI NICOLE HENDERSON

ARTIST STATEMENT:

My practice centers around movements of the human spirit between phases. I am drawn to life's initiations. Birth. Coming of age. Leaving the body. Rises and falls and the in-between. My primary discipline is film and within this framework there is also still photography, performance, sculpture, Black cosmetology and beauty as ritual, and the Black body in motion. The Black body as center, alive and yet, changing. Toni Morrison's profound literary Universe is a primary influence on my work, as is the function of storytelling in my family.

Because my family told wild stories, exaggerating for effect, making it memorable, making it their own, I grew to love the phases that a story undergoes over time. How it changes as we change. How it changes to fit the audience. To shock. Instruct. A story becoming a new thing in the retelling. My Grandmother spun a story like a web. She phased in details as I grew older and could handle the messiness of adult life. Making work around my personal memories, exploring ancestral and familial relationships are a means to re-animate and amplify the breakthrough moments in life in hopes of learning something about myself and more about the world.

Collaboration is central to my work. and I am ever-expanded by working with brilliant artists.

My films have screened in museums, galleries and film festivals and as outdoor projections and I am currently developing performance work with my husband, Cedric Umoja, entitled, "Black Love is Revolutionary."

M.F.A. in Film/TV, Savannah College of Art and Design

B.A. in English/Secondary Education, Clark Atlanta University

Contact

email: roni.henderson@gmail.com
cell: 803.636.0217

IG + Twitter : @movingpicshow