the meka jean project

 THE  ongoing TRAVELING PROJECT IS A CULMINATION OF A BODY OF WORK THAT IS  Diving into issues of discovering and owning one's image, intellectual property, authorship, appropriation, and ones relationship to art history. The Meka Jean Project is an feature length film and video installation, object and live performance based project that tracks the semi-autobiographical character "Meka Jean" as she endeavors to improve herself, to seek artistic success and individual empowerment.  The feature, "How She Got Good" treats each city as a character as well, baring its currents and contradictions while we witness the same in Meka Jean. We see the character mimic overtly sexualized women characters, and personify different types: a rap groupie, a rap video dancer, a rap diva, a self-empowered artist, an artist with gut-wrenching nerves, a collaborator, a sexy woman, a smart and serious woman, a woman of color, nakedly grieving and striving. The many versions of Meka Jean - albeit in one "black" female body form a filmic collage as she encounters various modern rituals for cleansing, improving or elevating oneself in terms of class, health, spirituality, adulthood, academia, music or art. She is the inspiration, the creation and the creator. MEKA JEAN DEBUTED AT PROSPECT.3 NEW ORLEANS AND TRAVELED TO EMERSON DORSCH GALLERY, MIAMI, DAVID SHELTON GALLERY, HOUSTON, 1708 GALLERY, RICHMOND AND IN 2016 WILL TRAVEL TO LOS ANGELES, CA, AUSTIN TX, HOUSTON, TX, PHILADELPHIA, PA, LONDON, ENGLAND AND BEYOND.
 

Check out the Podcast with Fresh Talk International about Meka Jean: How She Got Good's debut at Prospect.3, and the provocative and informative Podcast with The Project Room about of challenges of creating a legacy as it relates to The Meka Jean Project in a digital era.