Kristina Kay Robinson

Kristina Kay Robinson is a writer, curator, and visual artist born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her written, visual and curatorial practice centers and interrogates the modern and ancient connections between world communities. Robinson’s work both at home and abroad focuses on the impact of globalization, militarism, and surveillance on society and their intersections with contemporary art and pop culture. Her ongoing installation and performance art project, ​Republica: Temple of Color and Sound​ has been presented in exhibition at “Welcome to the Afrofuture” during Miami Art Week, New Museum’s residency program, Ideas City and the New Orleans African American Museum. Both iterations of Republica: Temple of Color and Sound received enthusiastic reviews in Sugarcane Magazine and most recently PIN-UP magazine.

Robinson is the co-editor of Mixed Company, a collection of short fiction and visual narratives by women of color. In addition to the anthology, the collective of writers hosted free cultural programming in the city of New Orleans. Notable events included a reading and lecture by Black Arts Movement poet, Sonia Sanchez at Le Musée de F.P.C and the American premiere of the award-winning Eritrean- Italian documentary, Asmarina. Robinson’s other curatorial endeavors include Sudanese artist Khalid Abdel Rahman’s “A Disappearance” hosted in 2017 by the Arts Council of New Orleans.

  • images projected onto an altar
  • trippy depiction of a woman dancing
  • a person on a chair holding flours with tears pouring down their face

Republica: Temple of Color and Sound
Sound installation
Collection of the artist

Curator

Lydia Y. Nichols

Lydia Y. Nichols is a native New Orleanian cultural critic and arts administrator. Her work centers the lived experiences of Africans in the Diaspora and prioritizes community accessibility. Lydia’s essays have appeared in Pelican Bomb, Liberator Magazine, Gathering of the Tribes Magazine, and The Killens Review. As co-curator of street art exhibition and Prospect P.3+ site ExhibitBE, Lydia researched and documented the history of the blighted apartment complex in which the work was created to guide the curatorial process, managed community programming and daily operations, and, after the exhibition closed, coordinated the #PaintWhereItAint Tour through which several ExhibitBE artists traveled across the southwest United States to collaborate with artists in other cities on community-centered public art projects. Since, Lydia has created “In/Between Spaces” – a mobile group exhibition series in a 26’ U-Haul that explores Black identity in various spheres of modern life and that travels to predominantly Black neighborhoods in New Orleans to engage those who have been alienated from the world of contemporary fine art. Lydia continues to manage production for artist Brandan “Bmike” Odums, including his first solo exhibition “Ephemeral Eternal” at Studio Be and, in collaboration with Welcome Table New Orleans, the Algiers Oral History and Public Art Intensive through which 24 high school youth are creating a freestanding mural based on interviews they conduct with elders on the evolution of race relations.

Artists