Season 3, Episode 3 | THE BLACK CREATIVE EXPERIENCE WITH ARTHUR JAFA

Auntie (host Marjon Carlos) first encountered artist Arthur Jafa through his seminal work Love Is the Message, The Message Is Death nearly ten years ago—and she was immediately struck by the seven minute video excavation of Black life. One of her favorite artists, Jafa has built a body of work that interrogates Blackness, challenges the conventions of filmmaking, and questions the power structures that shape the art world. On this episode of Your Favorite Auntie, Auntie welcomes the acclaimed artist, filmmaker, and cinematographer into her proverbial living room for a conversation about the life experiences that shaped his eye, from growing up in Mississippi to shooting Julie Dash’s landmark film Daughters of the Dust—and the work he passed on. The two get into the artist as outsider, the politics of the image, and what it means to make work that can move people to tears without necessarily changing how they undo systemic structures of inequality. Jafa reflects on his complicated relationship with Hollywood, the contradictions of success, and what his own rise reveals about race, power, and recognition in the art world. It’s a sprawling conversation about the Black creative experience, artistic ambition, and the politics of being seen, with one of the most important and uncompromising artists working today ahead of his historic survey, Arthur Jafa: I Am Tony—now on at the New Museum in New York. Subscribe to Your Favorite Auntie on Substack to follow along this season. In this episode: How growing up in Mississippi shaped Jafa’s eye and his understanding of the world Howard University, Black intellectual life, and the experiences that formed his artistic vision The griot, the artist as outsider, and the responsibility of telling stories about a community Shooting Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust and confronting the hierarchies of the film industry Why Love Is the Message, The Message Is Death remains such a powerful and unsettling meditation on Black life The difference between being moved by images of Black suffering and confronting the systems that produce it Black artists, YT supremacy, and the contradictions of institutional recognition Jafa’s relationship to success, ambition, and the importance of not believing your own hype Credits: Executive Producer: Annie Gottlieb of HiHello Media Production and Editing: WSA Follow Us On Social! Show IG: @yourfavoriteauntieshow Host IG: @marjon_carlos TikTok: @yourfavoriteauntieshow Web: www.yourfavoriteaunieshow.com