Toni Morrison Festival
OBJECTIVE
Our mission? Depict the “celebration of the bold, fun, funny, deliciously mischievous and youthful spirit of Toni Morrison; the singular woman who showed us how to dominate a dance floor, how to laugh like life itself, how to smoke a pipe like you mean it and how to sit for a camera so it has no choice but to fall in love.”
The inaugural Toni Morrison Festival - Alive at 89 - was held at Brooklyn Museum on February 18, 2020.
PUTTING THE PUZZLE TOGETHER
Along with other festival volunteers, we wished to not simply recite the history of Toni Morrison’s writing or character, but rather to reimagine it and embody it through the expression of our creative contribution.
Rather than play video clips of people at podiums, we assembled a lyrical and percussive video poem and composed almost entirely of still images captured by the event photographers alongside archival images of Morrison herself.
FINAL PRODUCT
The video represents a “youthful, joyful and soulful multidisciplinary experience—reflective of the wide readership Toni Morrison enjoyed.” Graphically-inspired textures and bold colors inform the aesthetic - building a crescendo of visual dynamism with aspirational prose, bookended by a rousing birthday song.
Photographers | Life Escobar + David Ye