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title
format
role
publication
client
format
role
publication
client
Sacrosanct
tryptich
director, archivist, co-producer, editor
fall 2022
Commissioned for Archipelago
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.
Co-Director: Koumbah Semega-Janneh
DP: Zion Estrada
Stylist: Sparkle Juarez
Cast: Drew Ultra
Editor: Zion Estrada
Sound Design: Maintain
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 EstradaCo-Director: Koumbah Semega-Janneh
DP: Zion Estrada
Stylist: Sparkle Juarez
Cast: Drew Ultra
Editor: Zion Estrada
Sonic Collage
Directors: Zion Estrada & Koumbah Semega-JannehSound Design: Maintain
Zion Estrada (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist researcher. Her work flows between archival assemblage filmmaking, sonic collage production and experiential design centering human and more-than-human (re)connection.
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 and Pauline Olivero’s Deep Listening.
She is most interested in the non-verbal and more-than-human qualities of storytelling from the African 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 from the traditions of Black Trans abolitionists care making, sex worker solidarity, doula presence practices and movement architects love of release.
Zion is currently researching traditional forms of care and practicing pod building and repair pracitces as inspired by Mia Mingus, Question Culture and the Abolition Dream lab.
Zion is the Creative Director of Black Discourse, co-founder of Wild Grass Design + Research Lab and owner of BZE Consultant LLC. She holds a M.A. Ed focused in participatory research and linquistics.
PREVIOUSLY
Director of Programs at BLD PWR; holds 10yrs as educator and curriculum developer.
CURRENTLY
Board member at Citizens of Culture
Exhibitor at the Ghetto Biennale in Jacmel, Haiti 2024
Participant in MIT Worlding Project Community 2023
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 and Pauline Olivero’s Deep Listening.
She is most interested in the non-verbal and more-than-human qualities of storytelling from the African 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 from the traditions of Black Trans abolitionists care making, sex worker solidarity, doula presence practices and movement architects love of release.
Zion is currently researching traditional forms of care and practicing pod building and repair pracitces as inspired by Mia Mingus, Question Culture and the Abolition Dream lab.
Zion is the Creative Director of Black Discourse, co-founder of Wild Grass Design + Research Lab and owner of BZE Consultant LLC. She holds a M.A. Ed focused in participatory research and linquistics.
PREVIOUSLY
Director of Programs at BLD PWR; holds 10yrs as educator and curriculum developer.
CURRENTLY
Board member at Citizens of Culture
Exhibitor at the Ghetto Biennale in Jacmel, Haiti 2024
Participant in MIT Worlding Project Community 2023
Film
Sound Works
Appearances
- Texte Zur Kunst Film Review Issue No.133/March 2024 “Restitution”
- Quantum Listening: Sound as Form/Practice
- Black Reconstruction Collective discusses UNMONUMENT CHICAGO:After Work, the group’s contribution to the 2023 Chicago Architecture Biennial
- Challenging the Perception of Preservation in Accra’s Architecture - Press
- ‘Certain Winds From the South’ NY African Film Festival
- Rhythmic Resistance
- Precious Time
- Love Extremist
- On the Art of Building New Language with Thando Hopa
- On the Art of Building from Scratch with Sandy Alibo
- On the Art of Lagosian Filmmaking with Arie & Chuko Esiri
SEE CURRENT VISUAL DISCOURSE ︎︎︎