'Secret Garden' by Stephanie Dinkins
Secret Garden by Stephanie Dinkins
January 29 - February 3, 2021
Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2021
Step into a garden and encounter oral histories spanning generations of Black women. As you wander this spatialized floral estate, you will encounter African-American women with stories to tell: surviving a slave boat, growing up on a 1920s Black-owned farm, surviving 9/11, and an AI powered by Black women. Secret Garden reminds us that sharing and receiving stories is an act of resistance.
Secret Garden is the culmination of the Nokia Bell Labs Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) residency program that engages NEW INC alumni and Nokia Bell Labs researchers for a year-long collaboration to produce new works of art that are enabled by Nokia Bell Labs technology. Secret Garden is also commissioned by the Onassis Foundation Eureka Commissions, and is presented by NEW INC and Onassis ONX.
Video documentation of the project, including an interview with Stephanie Dinkins:
Stephanie Dinkins is a transmedia artist who creates platforms about our future. Dinkins’ art practice employs lens-based practices, emerging technologies and community engagement to confront the contradictory histories, traditions, knowledge(s) and philosophies that form/in-form society at large underpin her thought and art production. Professor Dinkins holds the Kusama Endowed Chair in Art at Stony Brook University.
Credits
Lead Artist: Stephanie Dinkins
Producers: Stephanie Dinkins, Adaora Udoji, Nokia Bell Labs, Onassis Foundation, NEW INC, Onassis ONX
Platform Development: Sidney San Martín
Creative Producers: DOTDOT
Lead Developers (Physical Installation): Danielle McPhatter and Ethan Edwards, Nokia Bell Labs, and Sidney San Martín
Creative Technologists: DOTDOT and Sidney San Martín
Technical Directors: Sensorium
Writers: Stephanie Dinkins, Jade Dinkins
Audio Production (Storytellers): Hidden Chapel Studios
3D Assets: Jessa Gillespie
Soundscape: Myda El-Maghrabi
Projectionist: Mark Alan Johnson, Mojo Video Tech Inc
Visual: Brandi Porter, Dayne Board, Erlene Curry, Lisa Sainvil, Melissa Moore, Tianna Mendez
Audio: Deborah Leon, Joy Sunday, Karen Vaughn, Laura Vandiver, Leah Arscott, Stephanie Dinkins
Technical Production Support: Hard Work Party, Dirt Empire, Noel Paul
With Special Support From: Scatter, Creators of Depthkit
Production Intern: Elizabeth Pérez
Dinkins Studio Support: Neta Bomani
Thank you to all the people who lent their time and talent to this project, it would not have been possible without you. Additionally, thank you to Domhnaill Hernon, Vallejo Gantner, Abhita Austin, Erlene Curry, Karen Wong, Stephanie Pereira, Zoë Dolan, Alex Darby, and Mike Kelberman.
Special Thanks as well to the individuals whose contributions helped to make this presentation possible: Keri Elmsly, Ruby Lerner, Susan McPherson; and to RENTEX for essential support with installation equipment.