Screening | Talk To Him: Imani Shanklin Roberts
Eaton Hotel
<p>Talk to HIM is a collaborative public art installation conceived by the artists Imani Shanklin Roberts & Raya Kassisieh. Confrontationally, the artists explore gender and power by inviting participants to interact with masculinity head-on. The artist, Imani Shanklin Roberts, recites the unsaid, hidden, anonymous, repressed, and disenfranchised voices volunteered from the participating public. Masculine identifying persons were filmed as they received the words, the camera capturing the physical manifestations of their emotional responses while they remained silent. The documentation of this exchange resulted in a powerful film that will catalyze its viewers into modes of recognition, rage, reflection, and resonance.</p><p><br></p><p>About The Artists:</p><p>Imani Shanklin Roberts, an African American woman, and Raya Kassisieh, a Palestinian Jordanian woman are artists in the 21st century who draw directly from their experiences to create. Despite the polarity of their identities, they've found great friendship and intersection in the commonality of womanhood and vulnerability in their raw humanity. Though they create independently each piece of expression becomes almost diaristic in their confrontation with race, sex, gender, and culture. Both of their separate identities come with varying relationships to love, glory, power, hate, disenfranchisement, oppression, repression, and judgment. Both artists hope to broker change in a society fueled by misdirected masculine power that places importance on competition, war, scarcity, and haste. Imani & Raya hope to find more balance between the masculine and feminine by creating healthy confrontational spaces where participants can be unabashedly fearless, open, integrated, and present.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><em>With the health and safety of our community members in mind, we now require proof of COVID-19 vaccination or negative test results (within 72 hours) for all guests of Eaton DC. For more information, please see our COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing Policy.</em></p><p><br></p>