Proud to share that Black Planetarium has reached 2500 people after an 8 week exhibition at
@musiccenterla ! This inaugural exhibition at The Music Center LA’s Digital Arts Space on #Jerrymossplaza was curated by Beata Calinska
@Futureofnonfiction 💐
Extending
@K.Hailesilassie ’s Ancestral Algorithm (2020)—a cartography of 6,500 symbols from 20 African languages—the Black Planetarium exhibition was reimagined with co-director Ainslee Alem Robson and Ghanaian choreographer Elisabeth Efua Sutherland through the algo-rhythms of Adowa, an Ashanti practice of movement in which the body itself narrates a story, and becomes an archive. Black Planetarium is a space for rest, connection and imagination, and beyond its physical form, a vessel of knowledge-generation and ancestral memory.
So much gratitude to the people and institutions who supported us along the way, helping this work come to life.
Credits
Co-directed by:
@k.Hailesilassie @ahhslay
Installation design by:
@k.hailesilassie
Movement direction by:
@efuasutherland
Dancer:
@cvusehvrm
Director of Photography:
@samzhangfff
Steadicam Operator:
@day_by_dae
Gaffer:
@haley_minyoung_kreofsky
Grip:
@a_classic_jo
Costume:
@evachedda
Makeup:
@natou_fall
Photography by:
@inachen
Production Assistance:
@maricurti @_l.mery
Exhibition documentation:
@diasapienne
Producers: Aja Evans, Liam Young
@liam_y , Kidus Hailesilassie, Ainslee Alem Robson
Executive Producer: Lisa Osborne, Black Public Media
This project premiered as part of
@onassis.onx ’s curation at
@tribecafilmfestival 2025 and was incubated at
@opendoclab MIT Open Documentary Lab. Through post production it was supported by
@blackpublicmedia with Executive Producer for Black Public Media: Lisa Osborne
@julipeno and Immersive Producer: Aja Quinn Evans
@human_beam . It was also a grantee of the 2024
@idaorg Pare Lorentz Grant thanks to
@abbypsun and Keisha Knight, and a participant in the
@idfadoclab Forum.
