title
format
role
publication
client

Sacrosanct
tryptich
director, archivist, co-producer, editor
fall 2022
Commissioned for Archipelago



Sacrosanct, created by oral tradition studio BLACK DISCOURSE, is a three-channel pop-up film installation sanctifying the brilliance of Black heresy in the act of moving under the continued pressures of colonial imperialist violence.

The three channels named BORDER - BODY - DANCE, layer found footage of Black migrants crossing European borders and cross continental African dance styles juxtaposed with original footage of performing artist, Dru Ultra, twerking with the Pacific Ocean. Set to a hypnotic drum and bass repetition, BLACK DISCOURSE weaves the quotes of Harsha Walia, Ama Ata Aidoo, Rebecca Walker, Stuart Hall, Dr. Anthony Bogus and Arthur Jafa as a sonic collage and accompaniment.

Sacrosanct, presents the sacredness of the Black diasporic commitment to move as fluid and as fierce as the ocean moved us while still experiencing the precarious state of being in and of the African Diaspora.

Sacrosanct was imagined as a sonic and visual installation for the launch of ARCHIPELAGO: A party – An art installation – A sonic portal conceived by Intelligent Mischief. This experiential installation is intended to honor, explain, and activate the ethos of diasporic community building through our shared cultural heritage of music, oral tradition transmission, and dance. The project traces the lines of the past, present and future in which our present day connection and ancestral codes can emerge as key tools for building a post border pan-African century.

Film Credits

Director: Zion Estrada

Co-Director: Koumbah Semega-Janneh

DP: Zion Estrada

Stylist: Sparkle Juarez

Cast: Drew Ultra

Editor: Zion Estrada

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Sonic Collage

Directors: Zion Estrada & Koumbah Semega-Janneh

Sound Design: Maintain
Zion Estrada (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist researcher living on Gabrielleno/Tongva Territory. Her work flows between archival assemblage filmmaking, sonic collage production and experiential design.

Zion’s  experimental collage language in film and sonic works often use layering of field recordings, found sounds and carefully curated sound clips that score a line of discourse that complicate temporality, history and meaning making. Her practice is informed by the palimpsest.

Her services include creative direction/production, narrative strategy, archival research, experiential design, host/facilitation, and sonic/visual works.

She is most interested in the non-verbal  and non-human qualities of storytelling in Africa and her diaspora (specifically the Caribbean) and how sounds hold the spirits of the past and the alchemic power to magnetize communities, movement, moods, and healing. She draws on the traditions of Black Trans abolitionists care making, sex worker solidarity,  doula presence practices and movement architects love of release.

Zion is co-founder and Creative Director of Black Discourse and owner of BZE Consultant LLC.

PREVIOUSLY
Director of Programs at BLD PWR; holds 10yrs as educator and curriculum developer.

CURRENTLY
Board member at Citizens of Culture
Presenting at the Ghetto Biennale in Jacmel, Haiti 2024
Participant in MIT Worlding Project Community 2023