Ainslee Alem Robson is an Ethiopian-American writer-director and media artist who crafts emancipatory narratives and counterimaginings harnessing film, game engine technology, food, memory and archives as her ingredients. Refusing temporal linearity, Ainslee’s work speaks to the liminal spaces between Africa and its diasporas. Scrutinizing sites of erasure within hegemonic discourse, she aims to deconstruct hierarchies and colonial legacies while re-orienting emerging technologies to operate in service to, and from positions of Black consciousness. Juxtaposing both emerging and analog media, she crafts characters, worlds, and meals that center agency, reclamation, resistance and spice.

Ainslee has exhibited her film installation “Ferenj” in the “Guests From the Future” category at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia curated by Lesley Lokko. Amongst other art spaces her commissions and collaborations have been exhibited by MoMA, the New York Times, Ars Electronica, MU, and Vellum LA. Her debut non-fiction work “Ferenj: A Graphic Memoir in VR” (2020) premiered at Tribeca, SXSW, and was showcased at film festivals internationally. She has guest lectured and led workshops at universities around the world including UCLA, the GSA in Johannesburg, MIT, Cornell, UCSD, NYU, and ZhDK. Her non-fiction writing has been published by eFlux and Guggenheim, Art Africa, Vogue Italia, and OffRamp academic journal. She holds a BA in Philosophy and French from The College of Wooster and an MA in Fiction & Entertainment from SCI-Arc.

She studied directing and screenwriting at the Sankofa Film Institute under Haile Gerima in the 2025 “Around the Fire” intensive. Grounded in this decolonial approach to filmmaking, she is currently developing her first feature documentary, Empress Taytu, alongside the film installation Yeskèn.




Fellowships and Residencies

BAVC Media Maker Connect Residency 2026
Kala Institute of the Arts Fellowship 2025-2026
Archival Research Residency at The Recovery Plan in partnership with Villa Romana Florenz and Murate Art District, Florence, Italy 2026
Motion Capture Residency, Studio 44 MOCAPLAB, Geneva, Switzerland 2026

Savvy Contemporary, Standing in the Cracks of Multiple Histories, Residency 2025
“Around The Fire” Writing/Directing Lab with Haile Gerima, Sankofa Film Institute 2025 Cohort
Headlands Center For the Arts, Kitchen Internship 2025

Sundance Humanities Sustainability Fellowship 2022-23
Sundance Interdisciplinary ‘Art of Practice’ Fellowship 2021-22
Black Public Media PLUS Fellowship 2023
Studio 44 MOCAPLAB, Residency 2023
Goldsmiths MOCAP Streamer Virtual Artist in Residence 2022
Electric South ‘New Dimensions’ Lab 2022

Awards

Special Jury Prize Ex Aequo, NewImages Festival
IDA Pare Lorentz Fund 2024 Grantee
Black Public Media PitchBLACK 2023 Grantee
ONX Studio Member, 2023-26 Onassis Foundation