Black on Screen: The Legacy of Nikki Giovanni

In celebration of National Poetry, Month the Schomburg Center celebrates the life and legacy of the poet and activist, Nikki Giovanni with a screening of Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project. The film, directed by Michèle Stephenson and Joe Brewster oscillates vividly through time, taking a prismatic look at the poet's visionary contributions to The Civil Rights Movement, The Black Arts Movement, and literature at large. This experimental documentary depicts the poetics of temporality. The film sails across Giovanni's career in a collagist manner, presenting disparate portraits of the artist's life and work as cumulative and interconnected scenes, tethered to the artist's ongoing musings about love, futurity, and human threats to both.

The film screening will be preceded by a reading by poet and artist, Pamela Sneed. Sneed is the author of Imagine Being More Afraid of Freedom than Slavery (1998), Kong and Other Works (2009), and Funeral Diva (2020), which won the Lesbian Poetry Award from Lambda Literary in 2021. Following the screening the directors will be in conversation with Curatorial Specialist, Daniella Brito.

Runtime: 1 hr 42min

Accessibility requests can be made by e-mail [email protected].

Black on Screen: A Century of Radical Visual Culture, captures 100 years of local and transnational Black movement work and artistic evolution on film. Sourced from The Schomburg’s collection and others, it takes a kaleidoscopic look at Black life and expression across diasporas, rendering a range of storytelling traditions that incite and inspire Black world-building. The Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division (MIRS, pronounced “meers”) at the Schomburg Center collects and preserves audio and moving image (AMI) materials related to the experiences of people of African descent. The division has amassed nearly 400 collections, approximately 5,000 square feet, in a variety of formats, which captures the gestures and sounds of major historical, artistic and cultural moments and influencers. While the strength is the Black American holdings there is considerable Caribbean and African representation in the collection.

This year, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture continues celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding! Join us all year long for a wide array of special events, exhibitions, and more as we celebrate this milestone and continue the legacy of Arturo Schomburg.

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FIRST COME, FIRST SEATED Events are free and open to all, but due to space constraints registration is requested. Registered guests are given priority check-in 15 to 30 minutes before start time. After the event starts all registered seats are released regardless of registration, so we recommend that you arrive early. We generally overbook to ensure a full house.

GUESTS Please note that holding seats in the Langston Hughes Auditorium is strictly prohibited and there is no food or drinks allowed anywhere in the Schomburg Center.

ACCESSIBLILITY Accessibility requests can be made by e-mail [email protected].

E-TRANSPORTATION NYPL policy prohibits electric transportation devices (e.g., motorbikes, e-bikes, e-scooters, e-skateboards) from being brought into or stored at library sites for any length of time, as this is the best way to keep our spaces & people safe.

AUDIO/VIDEO RECORDING Programs are photographed and recorded by the Schomburg Center. Attending this event indicates your consent to being filmed/photographed and your consent to the use of your recorded image for any all purposes of the New York Public Library.

PRESS Please send all press inquiries (photo, video, interviews, audio-recording, etc) at least 24-hours before the day of the program to Leah Drayton at [email protected].

Please note that personal and professional video recordings are prohibited without expressed consent.

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Host or Publisher Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture