Monologue with
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Topic Magazine
Mute
A film commissioned by Topic with award-winning author Ta-Nehisi Coates. This film was shortlisted for an Emmy Award for Best Animated Short in 2018.
THE PROCESS
Monologue is a collaborative project with Topic, a New York-based organization dedicated to working with creators of all media at the forefront of culture. The project reimagines an interview Topic had with author Ta-Nehisi Coates where he talks about the hopes and dreams of fatherhood.
With identity being at the core of Coates’ interview, I placed several symbols throughout Monologue to reflect this personal connection. The pencils and books for example make up the cityscape backdrop, but also calls back to Coates’ struggle as a writer while raising a family. The scene of father and son flying a kite is pulled from a personal experience I had with my own son.
But the challenges of being a father in America comes with even more social implications when the subject is black fatherhood. I used an Afro Pik comb, an everyday item in black households, in the film to also double as the bars of a prison because sometimes that which defines us, is also what we’re up against.