Digital Diaspora Family Reunion makes its Brooklyn Premiere
Digital Diaspora Family Reunion is a national multimedia community engagement initiative that empowers individuals and families across North America to create new photos, unearth old photos, and share images documenting themselves and their neighborhoods. Harris’innovative multi-platform venture gives participants the tools and resources to share their pictures within an interactive online environment that maps Photography from the African Diaspora across time, place, and genre.
Kids, students, photographers, seniors, and library patrons comprised the diverse
Brooklyn audience for Digital Diaspora Family Reunion. Jay Kaplan – the Library’s Director of Public Programs welcomed the eager attendees and introduced the event’s emcee Thomas Allen Harris who began the Sunday gathering with a personal story of how he first got involved with photography and film through his extended family of New York educators, artists, and community activists. The audience was then treated to a special sneak preview of a excerpt from Harris’ fourth feature documentary currently in production, “
Through A Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People.”
The mission of the Digital Diaspora Family Reunion initiative is to encourage people from all walks of life to take a moment to find, share, and talk about their family photos. The Dweck Center audience saw a great diversity of family photos and personal stories during the February 28th event. Author and university professor,
Pamela Newkirk, was the first person to take the stage with Thomas Allen Harris. Ms. Newkirk shared the story of how she gained an appreciation for photography from her father. And she also explained how personal photos played a role in the research for her most recent publication “
Letters from Black America”which is a thorough and poignant narrative of African American life as told through intimate letters.
The audience was enthralled by visions of West Africa as Brooklyn Chef, Restaurateur owner of
Le Grand Dakar, and author of the new book “
Yolele! Recipes From the Heart of Senegal” –
Pierre Thiam – talked about how he learned about cooking and culture from his large extended family in Dakar. He also confessed that he had not seen many of the photos from his youth in quite some time –and how moving it was to look at the poignant pictures from his past.
Blogger and photographer
Rod Risbrook revealed the ‘back-story’ to this fascination with the digital image. Risbrook showed family photos of himself as a very young child as well as images of the family he has cultivated and nurtured as an adult. Rod talked about how he started his blog
Nubian Knights Network and how important it is for him to collect, create, create, and share positive images of ‘same sex loving’individuals, couples, and communities.
As one of the partners for the Brooklyn stop of the Digital Diaspora Roadshow, the New York chapter of the
Harvard Black Alumni Society was well represented during the afternoon program. Heather Johnston attended Harvard with Thomas Allen Harris during the 1980s where the two both gained an appreciation for the power of Film & Television. Now an executive at
Olympia Pictures, Heather is diligent about preserving and sharing the stories and photos of her multicultural family.
At the end of the formal presentations, Thomas Allen Harris opened up the program to questions and comments from the audience who shared their own experience of family photos and the stories they evoke. Entertainment attorney,
W. Wilder Knight II, brought along a 19th century sketch of an African American ancestor that had been recently unearthed. Philadelphia filmmaker, Arianne Edmonds, brought samples of one of the early Black newspaper in Los Angeles, “
The Liberator” which was founded by Edmonds ancestors at the turn of the twentieth century. Public Relations specialist, Sandra Black and her colleague journalist Janice Greene contributed a few of their family photos that were included within a special slideshow that played at the end of the event as did Jackie Willis show had submitted images from the family reunions she has been organizing for the past 30 years.
The Brooklyn was the fourth stop of the Digital Diaspora Family Reunion Roadshow (earlier events were held in
Georgia,
Maryland, and
Massachusetts) that will begin an extensive national tour in the near future. Look out for more news and information on this exciting new campaign to find and share images from African American Family Photo Albums from across the country when the Digital Diaspora enhanced Website is launched in the summer of 2010.
The Digital Diaspora Family Reunion Roadshow (DDFR) is just one of the many innovative projects currently in production at Chimpanzee Productions, Inc. which is a multi-platform production company whose mission is to create unique media experiences that illuminate the Human Condition and the search for identity, family, and spirituality. DDFR is supported by a wide diversity of individuals and institutions including;
Corporation for Public Broadcasting,
National Endowment for the Arts, CrossCurrents Foundation,
Fledgling Fund, and numerous private donors.
The Brooklyn Public Library presenters of the DDFR Roadshow would like to thank the BPL staff, funders, and project partners including the National
Endowment for the Humanities.
The Brooklyn Public Library Staff Members who assisted with the DDFR Roadshow included:
- Jay Kaplan – Director, Programs and Exhibitions Department
- Meredith Walters - Manager of Adult Programs
- Gregg Richards – Senior Audio Visual Technician
- Alyssa Rodriguez – Audio Visual Technician
- Finell Williams – Dweck Center Usher
- Duane Chandler – Dweck Center Usher
The Digital Diaspora Family Reunion Roadshow Participants included;
- Sandra Black
- Arianne Edmonds
- Janice L. Greene
- Heather Johnston
- Kelli Knight
- Pamela Newkirk
- Rod Risbrook
- Patricia Robinson
- Pierre Thiam
- Jackie Willis
DDFR Roadshow Crew:
- Thomas Allen Harris – producer, director, writer
- Ann Bennett – multimedia producer
- Don Perry – consulting producer, writer
- Jennifer Carr – Outreach Consultant
- London Parker McWhorter – Videographer, Still Photographer
- Nyjia Jones – Camera Operator
- Chinonyelem Osuji – Camera Operator, Outreach Assistant - & -
- Anjanette LeVert – Registration
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