Trina Michelle Robinson
Berea 2
Berea 3
Berea 1
Liberation through redaction 1
Liberation through redaction 2
Liberation through redaction 3
Martin French Section
Artist Bio
Trina Michelle Robinson explores the relationship between memory and migration through film, sound, archival materials and text. Her work has been shown at galleries and film festivals throughout the country including including the BlackStar Film Festival in Philadelphia, the San Francisco Art Commission Main Gallery, Southern Exposure and Root Division in San Francisco, and New York’s Wassaic Project. She told the story of exploring her ancestry with The Moth Mainstage on stages throughout the country including New York’s Lincoln Center and NPR’s Moth Radio Hour. She was an Artist-in-Residence at Black Space Residency at Minnesota Street Project in 2021 and has been invited to do a month-long residency in August 2022 with Lost and Found Lab where she will have access to Yale’s Beinecke Library for her research-based work. She previously has worked in print and digital media as a managing editor and production director at publications and companies such as The New York Times T Magazine, Vanity Fair, California Sunday Magazine, The New Republic and Slack and is currently pursuing an M.F.A. in Fine Art at California College of the Arts where she was awarded the 2020 Yozo Hamaguchi Award. Earlier this year the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) announced she was one of the four artists included in their Emerging Artist Program 2022-23.
Artist Statement
My artwork explores the relationship between memory and migration using an interdisciplinary approach that includes film, print media and archival materials. I want to get to the root of lost memories, especially in relation to migration, whether the move forced or initiated by a search for new opportunities, we all have a migration story in our bloodlines. I study the fragments of memory and repurpose these. The lives of my ancestors are the catalyst behind my artwork and their stories are woven into every detail. Why did they leave? What were they hoping to find? What remains? I want to explore every fracture, fold and glitch to release the trauma that lives inside. The act of forgetting is often a mode of self-preservation to keep us moving forward and from falling apart. However, in order to truly move forward it is important to dig deep and do the work to finally be released from the invisible chains that will remain present in our lives until we look them straight in the eye.
I hope viewers find relationship in my work. Migration is something we all have in common at some point in our histories and migrants speak a common language. Each journey is varied, but we are connected by the questions we ask ourselves in that search. Movement is a familiar thread that connects us all.