The voice of one of Virginia’s most loved and outspoken poets, Nikki Giovanni, is featured in a new multimedia art exhibit at Virginia Tech. Six of Giovanni’s poems are the inspiration behind the work, which will be on display Tuesday, December 9, the one-year anniversary of Giovanni’s death.
It’s called “The Nikki Giovanni Immersive Experience,” and it features motion graphics and music accompany the voice of Giovanni reading her poems from different stages of her life.
“We really hope that visitors can spend time with Nikki Giovanni’s voice and words and ideas,” said Meaghan Dee, an associate professor of graphic design and the installation's manager. She explained that visitors will walk into a room with animated graphics projected on three walls, and 140 speakers. “And so the motion graphics are surrounding you, and the audio is also surrounding you,” Dee said.
Professors, staff and students with four Virginia Tech departments collaborated on the installation. “Working on the Nikki Giovanni project has shown me that embodying her poetry moves beyond honoring her words,” reflected assistant professor of Applied Theatre, Brittney Harris.
“It becomes an act of keeping her spirit in motion and her legacy vibrantly alive, inviting us to witness, imagine, and carry her vision forward with intention,” Harris said.
Composition professor Charles Nichols wrote and produced music to accompany the poems. “It has been a powerful experience listening for hours to Nikki Giovanni performing her poetry, and it has been a pleasure working with this team of incredibly creative artists, as we developed the Immersive Experience,” Nichols said.
They displayed an earlier iteration of the exhibit with two of Giovanni's poems in June during a memorial celebration of the poet's life.
University President Tim Sands had the idea for the installation project, said Dee, and Giovanni gave permission shortly before her death last year. Giovanni’s partner Virginia Fowler and faculty in the English Department selected the poems.
The Nikki Giovanni Immersive Experience will be on display at the Cube theater, at Virginia Tech’s Center for the Arts in Blacksburg. The presentation lasts less than 15 minutes and will run on a loop from 10:00 am until 5:00 pm Tuesday, December 9. The exhibit is also expected to be in Alexandria, at the Torpedo Factory, from January till May. Both events are free.
