Imani Dennison (she/they) is an interdisciplinary artist working across video, photography, sculpture, and installation. Their practice engages African diasporic mythologies, using speculative and lens-based approaches to explore memory, migration, and ritual. Born in Louisville, Kentucky, and a graduate of Howard University. Imani’s academic background in Political Science and Photography informs their critical reimagining of African diasporic futures.
Imani’s eight-minute film NO MAS – Irreversible Entanglements was exhibited at moCa Cleveland’s Imagine Otherwise exhibit, where it merged flashbacks of the past with speculative futures.
Imani also a two-time presenter the William and Louise Greaves Film Seminar organized by BlackStar Film Festival. Both workshops, An Afro-futurist Audio Film Workshop, and Poetics of Sound: Before the Image, both centered non traditional ways of using sound to score images, through creative writing and thoughtfully curated prompts.
Imani is the Curator and Founder of an experimental series dedicated to preserving Black imagination under the name Black Science Fiction, where they program live music performances, and film screenings that foreground Afrofuturist visions and speculative narratives. This curatorial initiative compliments their broader artistic practice, fostering community engagement and reflection on the possibilities of Black and Brown futures.
Imani has created commissioned works for PBS, Tribeca, ITVS, and Procter & Gamble. As a 2022 Tribeca Queen Collective Directing Program grantee, they directed Bone Black: Midwives vs. the South, an award-winning creative nonfiction film that premiered internationally at the Tribeca Film Festival. Their film, The People Could Fly, supported by a 2023 Chicken & Egg/POV grant, explores roller skating as a cultural ritual and the significance of roller rinks as sanctuaries for Black communities in Louisville, Kentucky. Their forthcoming short documentary Keeping Ground, commissioned by Firelight Media as part of the Homegrown series, is currently in production for Summer 2026.
Imani is currently developing Mississippi Mud in Spring, an evolving body of work that explores land, memory, and inheritance across film, and installation. As a 2025 Black Rock Senegal artist-in-residence, Duke DocX Fellow, and a fellow in the 2024 Points North/Black Star Film Festival’s North Star Program, they continue to expand this project, weaving narratives from the American South with the broader African diaspora. They are currently an MFA candidate in Art Practice at Stanford University.
Instagram: @imaninikyah
Vimeo: Imani Dennison