Ainslee Robson

Ainslee Alem Robson is an Ethiopian-American director and writer who crafts immersive stories about tensions embedded within the intersectional layers of identity, perception, the digital, and nostalgia. With a background in philosophy she focuses on narratives that deconstruct hierarchy and colonial legacies using emerging technologies in digital art and film.

Her work is characterized by speculative and emancipatory storytelling strategies, with a transcultural, feminist and post-colonial lens. She is passionate about social justice and harnesses storytelling as a vehicle for meaningful discussion through productive images and narratives of Ethiopia and Blackness to change the Western gaze and misrepresented narratives of Africa. Ainslee developed an experimental narrative and visual language in Ferenj: A Graphic Memoir in VR, her directorial debut. This afrosurrealist experience based on her personal experience of growing up as an Ethiopian-American in Cleveland, Ohio and later living in Addis Ababa, premiered at Tribeca Film Festival’s Cinema360 via Oculus as well as being officially selected to exhibit in SXSW’s 2020 Virtual Cinema.