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three fold special section—fall 2025


KEYS TO THE CITY: An Evening with Kevin Jerome Everson

Saturday, November 15, 6 p.m.
Newlab at Michigan Central
2050 15th Street, Detroit, MI 48216
Free admission

Conversation between Kevin Jerome Everson and Danielle Eliska.
Discussion moderated by Kelly Kivland, Director and Lead Curator, Michigan Central Art.
Introduction by Trinosophes Projects Artistic Director Rebecca Mazzei.
Film screening curated by MCFF Artistic Director Oona Mosna.
Partners: Modern Ancient Brown & NOVA24 Photo + Film Festival.





The Reverend E. Randall T. Osborn, First Cousin, 3.5 min, Super 8mm > digital, 2007

One of Everson’s signature archival films that reveal the construction of performance and portrayal in a minimally-edited interview with Martin Luther King’s first cousin about police brutality during riots in Cleveland, Ohio.



Second and Lee, 3 min, 16mm > digital, 2008

A cautionary tale about when not to run. Archival reportage and voiceover trace through repetitive corridors of presumption, justice and judgment.




Playing Dead, 1.5 min, 16mm > digital, 2008

A film about lying still to stay alive. A news reporter queries the survivor of a brutal attack.




Key to the Cities, 2 min, 16mm > digital, 2008

Two mayors honoring the “Candy Man” in two different ways.




Fe26, 7 min, 16mm > digital, 2014

The east side of Cleveland, Ohio and the tensions between illegal work—in this case, the theft of manhole covers and copper piping—and the basic survival tactics that exist in areas of high unemployment.




Century, 6.5 min, 16mm > digital, 2012

A car is getting thrashed.




Practice, Practice, Practice, 10 min, 16mm > digital, 2024

Practice, practice, practice is what Richard Bradley did before he took down the confederate flag at City Hall in San Francisco during the mayoral term of the late Senator Dianne Feinstein.




Polly One, 6 min, 16mm > digital, 2018

Polly One is about 99% totality. Filmed in Saluda, North Carolina, during the solar eclipse on August 21, 2017.


ABOUT KEVIN JEROME EVERSON


Kevin Jerome Everson (USA) is an artist and filmmaker born in Mansfield, Ohio in 1965. He has completed more than 300 solo and collaborative shorts and feature-length films since 1997, quietly assembling one of the most remarkable collections of contemporary African American life ever committed to cinema. Everson’s films frequently depict Black working-class communities, stretching across a variety of themes and subjects including migration, illusion, astronomy, human kinetics, entomology, musicology, ornithology, historical reenactment, and the folktale. He received a BFA from the University of Akron and an MFA from Ohio University (1990). His films have been exhibited widely at festivals, museums, and galleries internationally, including Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia, BlackStar Film Festival, New York Film Festival, HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark, Toronto International Film Festival, Walker Art Center, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Locarno Film Festival and Venice Film Festival. He has received retrospectives at Cinéma du Réel, Centre Pompidou, Harvard Film Archive, Tate Modern, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Seoul, Visions du Réel, Whitney Museum of American Art, and Media City Film Festival. His work has been featured at the 2008, 2012, and 2017 Whitney Biennials, the 2013 Sharjah Biennial, the 2018 Carnegie International, the 2023 Contour Biennale, and the 2024 Thailand Biennale. He has received an American Academy in Rome Prize (2002), a Herb Alpert Award (2012), a Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities (2019), an American Academy in Berlin Prize (2020), a Guggenheim Fellowship, and grants and commissions from Creative Capital, Just Films/Ford Foundation and Sundance Art of Non-Fiction. Media City Film Festival has screened more than 50 films by Everson since 2009. He lives and works in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he is the Commonwealth and Ruffin Foundation Distinguished Professor of Studio Art and Director of Studio Arts at the University of Virginia.


ABOUT DANIELLE ELISKA

Danielle Eliska is an award-winning screenwriter, filmmaker, photographer, entrepreneur, and educator from Detroit. She is the founder of multimedia production houses, Neighborhood Bodega | saturdayNIGHTERS, and a co-creator of an experimental art community. Danielle received her MFA in Dramatic Writing in Film from New York University. Her film and photography work has been widely exhibited, including at Flint Institute of Arts, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, The Scarab Club, Florida Museum of Photographic Arts, Los Angeles Center of Digital Art, Soho Photo Gallery, and Field Projects Gallery; her first solo exhibition opened at Central Michigan University’s Baber Gallery in 2023. Danielle has freelanced photography for VICE, Brooklyn Museum, and Museum of Modern Art in New York. Her production house clients include Art Basel | Salonnière, Kresge Arts in Detroit, Detroit Narrative Agency and more. She was one of the inaugural grant recipients of the 2019 Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment and New York Foundation for the Arts “Made in NY” Women’s Fund in Film, was a 2022 Womxnhouse Detroit Resident, a 2023 CultureSource + Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Flourish Fund grant recipient, a 2023 Cranbrook Academy of Art Photography Department Artist-in-Resident, and a 2024 Seed and Bloom: Detroit Fellow. She lives and works in Detroit.


ABOUT KELLY KIVLAND

Kelly Kivland is Director and Lead Curator of Michigan Central Art. An interdisciplinary curator and producer, she seeks to expand the reception of contemporary practices with diverse publics, amplify under-recognized histories, and foster new models of presentation. Kivland began her career commissioning and producing performances in New York City before turning to curating. From 2011–2021, she was Curator at Dia Art Foundation, followed by her role as Head of Exhibitions at the Wexner Center for the Arts (2021–2024). At Michigan Central Art,she is developing diverse, intergenerational programs that connect creativity, technology, and society while deepening partnerships within Detroit and beyond.


Image credits: Film stills © Kevin Jerome Everson courtesy the artist; trilobite-arts DAC and Picture Palace Pictures.


View next: Three Quarters: The Cinema of Kevin Jerome Everson screening program



Founded in 2020, Three Fold is an independent quarterly based in Detroit that presents exploratory points of view on arts, culture, and society in addition to original works in various media, including visual art, literature, film and the performing arts. We solicit and commission contributions from artists, writers, and activists around the world. Three Fold is a publication of Trinosophes Projects, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization located in the historic Eastern Market district in downtown Detroit. Click here to check out Three Fold’s events page and view a schedule of the publication’s on-site activities.

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