AKEEMA-ZANE
ARTIST.RESEARCHER.EDUCATOR
Bio
Akeema-Zane is an artist and researcher working in literature, film, performance and sound. Akeema-Zane resides in New York where she was born and raised.
She has published short stories “When Money Can’t Buy You Home” (2015) and “There’s a Monopoly on Change” (2015) as well as poems “Basil Grows on Mother Earth” (2018) and “Nonsecular Non Sequitur.” Some of her sound design has been featured in Nan Collymore’s short film “LANA” (2023), Kearra Gopee’s “Ca(r)milla” (2023) commissioned by The Kitchen: On Air; Nile Harris’ “Testify (The Worst Is Yet To Come” (2023); commissioned by Under The Radar and Ping Chong and Company, Shea Moisture’s Pride campaign (2021); Joselia Rebekah Hughes’ “Masque On” (2021) commissioned by ArtsNova; Mia Wright-Ross’ “A Moment To Breathe (2021); commission by MAD MUSEUM; Naima Ramos-Chapman’s “In Place of Monuments” (2021); and Art 21’s short doc “Doreen Garner on Her Own Terms” (2021).
With collaborator A. Sef, she installed her first immersive experience, “Void Spa” (2023) at Recess Art in Brooklyn, NY. With collaborator Rena Anakwe, the artist has developed works that combine her literary, film, performance and sound practices through “Our Mourning Due: A Funeral Sermon” (2022); commissioned by SCAD Museum of Art’s Evans Center for African American Studies and “Sonic Escape Routes: Shall We Fly? Or, Shall We Resist?” (2020); commissioned by Weeksville Heritage Center. Her featured role in the short film “When Rain Clouds Gather” by Christian Nyampeta is currently featured in this year’s Venice Biennale. She made her directorial stage debut in the solo rendition of the play “Precious Metals” performed by Goodlight Production’s founder and executive director, Carolyn Harrison presented by Goddard Riverside Community Arts (2024).
She is currently a film educator at Maysles Documentary Center and serves as board chair of The School of Making Thinking as well as on the board of directors of Cucalorus Film Festival.
image credit: Tyler Andrew "6" Nelson
a²z, Akeema-Zane’s music/sound practice, includes deejaying, composition and scoring/sound design. Akeema-Zane is featured in the works of artists Liv.e, PinkSiifu, L'Rain and lojii. She has deejayed opening for artists KeiyaA, MIKE, B.Cool Aid, H31R, Nappy Nina and Anysia Kim and played in many of NYC’s music and club venues including Public Records, Paragon, NUBLU and more. She has worked for festivals including Prismatic Ground, colleges including Columbia University and brands Shea Moisture and On. Some of
her mixes are featured on NTS and The Lot Radio.
FEATURED WORK
2023
2026
The Midnight Enigma
A. Sef & Akeema-Zane
Void Spa is an immersive installation replicating a contemplative cave experience with darkness, harsh ambient sound, geomancy, and tactile stimulation. This project examines how rites develop within post-industrial subcultures, especially through sensory design. It also rejects the extractive and appropriative use of Black and Brown spirituality within luxury wellness by reflecting instead on protected or disrupted traditions from their syncretic adaptations and media representations.
Directed, Shot, Edited and Performed by Akeema-Zane and Rena Anakwe
In centering the historical contexts of The Great (Black) migration, The Harlem Renaissance and the collaborative spirits of James Weldon Johnson and Aaron Douglas, artists Akeema-Zane and Rena Anakwe immerse themselves in the Southern landscapes of Savannah, Georgia and Wilmington, North Carolina to invoke the text “Go Down, Death.” What emerges is a survey of the synergy between land and it’s cycles of death, as well as the rest that is needed for regeneration.
Directed and Edited by Akeema-Zane
Akeema-Zane invites artist Joselia Rebekah Hughes to share in silence, thought and wonder. They take a trip on train, car and foot to greet each other and wander through the South Bronx - a site which sees them weaving stories of lived experience, cultural phenomena, ancestry and the (un)belonging. This work is an attempt too, at the extension of self-portraiture as documentation of the space between us (a nod to the artist/writer Trace Depass- thank you).
Directed and Edited by Akeema-Zane
A Slow IllumiNATION takes its direction from the artists’ collaborative piece with Rena Anakwe in their 2022 Savannah College of Art and Designs’ commission entitled “Our Mourning Due” (2022). “In centering the historical contexts of the text “God’s Trombones and the collaborative spirits of James Weldon Johnson and Aaron Douglas, Akeema-Zane and Rena Anakwe have immersed themselves in the Southern landscapes of Savannah, Georgia and Wilmington, North Carolina to invoke the text “Go Down, Death.” What emerges is a survey of the synergy between land and its cycles of death, as well as the rest that is needed for regeneration.”
Co -Created by Akeema-Zane, Pegah Pasalar and Sophie Spencer Zavos
From the Bronx to Trinidad, Maryland to New York, Tehran to Chicago, 9 entities emerges to illuminate three artists’ documented pasts and interpretations of discovering their private as a public history. Through mining what emerges as a map of publics, the artists discover a question of conception and draw on a shared obsession- mothers. How do we imagine the arrangement of things coming together to give notion to our sense of selves and our current realities?
Directed & Performed by Akeema-Zane & Rena Anakwe
Sonic Escape Routes seeks to explore the following: what is the spiritual core and where is the liminal space for a people whose freedom to thrive remains in question? and what are the varying routes that anchor us toward flight or resistance? Through a collaborative sound and visual performance, the artists aim to assert and embed their own personal narratives and histories to traverse the archives of Weeksville in order to answer these questions.”
experience
Right Here by H31r (Music Video)
Creative Direction: Jennifer Hernandez, Maassai Collier, Akeema-Zane, Ryan Wise Filmed by Akeema-Zane
Edited by Ryan Wise
PRECIOUS METALS: BEAUTY IN BROKENNESS (2024)
Directed by Akeema-Zane
