During the October 2022 Symposium, Syracuse London hosted two special guest artists to reflect on (in)equity in media creation and content, from blockbusters to documentaries to music videos.

Read more about their work and the Symposium’s content below.

Zinha Morgan-Bennett is an activist-scholar particularly drawn to questions surrounding race, reproduction, and the body. A born and bred New Yorker from Washington Heights, Zinha recently studied filmmaking at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Her poetic documentary, Mama, I’m Through, presents a group of Black women in their twenties considering motherhood as contextualised by the Black Lives Matter movement. Zinha screened her film as part of the Symposium, with attendees enjoying an intimate Q&A afterward.

As Mantawoman, she creates pop music videos and social commentary; as Reylon, he co-directs Tangram, an artist collective envisioning a world beyond the China-West dichotomy. Reylon Yount began learning yangqin (the Chinese hammered dulcimer) to stay connected to their heritage.
They have since introduced the rare instrument to the world stage, and are featured in the soundtrack to Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Reylon played excerpts from the film as well as their own work, while speaking about collaboration and representation in media making.

header image: stills from Reylon’s “Strange” and Zinha’s “Mama, I’m Through”