Kelsey Van Ert & Kino Galbraith

Ancestry:
Kelsey - Ojibwe / African American
Kino - Jamaican (non-Indigenous)
Based In: Brooklyn, NY
Email: kelseypyro@gmail.com
Social Media: @bgirlpyro
Website: kelseypyro.com

About the Art
Kelsey is an African American and Ojibwe (Native American) performance artist, music producer, and storyteller from Minneapolis MN. Kino Galbraith is a Jamaican born Brooklyn based photographer and film artist.As collaborators we challenge each other to use our mediums to respond to each other's work. Together our projects blend film with music, poetry, and performance art to amplify narratives of people of the African Diaspora and Native American people. Through our pieces we amplify our decolonization process, identity, communities, history, cultural practice, and experience.

Kelsey:
As an individual of mixed heritage, my work is often connected to my African American and Ojibwe heritage. I use music, songwriting, poetry, and performance art to celebrate my heritage as well as share histories and narratives. At times my work focuses on my Black identity, other times it focuses on my Native story. I innately use oral traditions from my Ojibwe and African American background to inform my lyrics. The mixing of organic and electronic sounds is ever-present in my creations, often mixing found sounds, acoustic guitar, cello and voice with electronic synths. I have been learning how to make hand drums and incorporating their sound in my hip-hop music production. My work as a performance artist began by combining history, slurs, and stereotypical imagery of African Americans and Native Americans and creating a new image using body paint and costume.

Kino:
My passion for capturing the world around me began during my first photography class as an undergraduate student at City College in New York. Soon after I purchased my first camera, applied what I learned, and began playing with the different settings. I realized how much control one can have over an image. There is so much more to taking a photo than merely pressing a button. The right settings can freeze a beautiful moment, creating a unique story. That story can be enjoyed over and over again with those who were there and those who weren’t. The majority of my photos are taken outdoors because I prefer to utilize light sources that are available in the world around me. The subject matter in my photos are often lit by natural light, street lights, neon signs, car lights etc. I was born and raised partially in Kingston, Jamaica and immigrated to Brooklyn, New York as a child - where I reside to this day. I live in Canarsie Brooklyn, a Caribbean neighborhood, and I celebrate my friends and community through stylistic portraits or street style photos. However I have always had a deep appreciation for nature, often seizing opportunities to leave the city. When I venture into the world, I always have a camera.

About the Artist

Kelsey:
Kelsey Van Ert (also known as Ikwe or Kelsey Pyro) is a St. Paul & Minneapolis grown/Brooklyn-based artist and arts educator. Kelsey is also an interdisciplinary artist focusing on music production, songwriting, poetry, and performance art. Her artistic work is often tied to her identity as a Black and Ojibwe (Native American) woman. Her work has been presented at The Shed, Lincoln Center Out Of Doors, and the SoundSet Music Festival. Kelsey is a recipient of the 2018 and 2019 Brooklyn Arts Council Community Arts Grant. Kelsey was a 2018 Artist In Residence at The Shed where she created and performed her 90 music performance piece titled MAKADEWIIYAASIKWE, meaning “woman of African descent” in the Ojibwe language. She expanded MAKADEWIIYAASIKWE as a 2019 Artist In Residence for The Wyckoff House’s Protest Garden Artist Residency - a program supported and funded by Lincoln Center. Her 47 min music film “goodbyes,” created in collaboration with Kino Galbraith, aired at the 2020 Prelude Festival.

Kino:
Kino Galbraith is a Jamaican born, Brooklyn grown film artist and photographer. His work focuses on amplifying imagery of urban and sometimes rural spaces in New York city and around the world. He enjoys collaborating on creative projects with friends, many of whom are local artists of New York City, by documenting and highlighting their work with his camera. Kino’s work has been shown at The Shed NYC, The Center at West Park, the Wyckoff House’s Protest Garden Artist Residency funded by Lincoln Center, and the Brooklyn Prelude Festival. Kino is also a member of Bear Canvas Sounds, a collective that curates spaces for local BIPOC artists to showcase their work.

Response to 5.25.2020 Videos
"Response to 5.25.2020" is a series of original music set to visual imagery of my hometown of Minneapolis/St. Paul Minnesota shot 2 months after George Floyds murder. Each of the 5 videos is shot on an iPhone 6 by Kelsey Van Ert and set to her original electronic hip-hop and R&B music scores. The imagery was artfully edited to the music by Kino Galbraith The existing videos capture the South Side neighborhood of Minneapolis (a Black, Latino and Native neighborhood) and the Frogtown/Rondo neighborhoods of St. Paul two months after the murder of George Floyd.