BIO

LA-based Cleveland native Ainslee Alem Robson is an award-winning Ethiopian-American director, writer and media artist. Her directorial debut, Ferenj: A Graphic Memoir in VR, based on her personal experience deconstructs tensions embedded within intersectional layers of her biracial identity, migration, perception, and nostalgia. This afrosurreal 360 film premiered at Tribeca, SXSW and travelled to 11 other film festivals and art spaces worldwide. Ferenj received the Special Jury Prize at the NewImages Film Festival in Paris and has also been translated into French and Mandarin. She creates productive images of her community, of Ethiopia and of the continent—to push beyond reductive and misrepresentative narratives of Africa and Blackness. Ainslee’s background in philosophy renders a critical approach to her emancipatory storytelling strategies. Through a transcultural, feminist, and first-generation American lens she crafts stories focusing on underrepresented narratives that deconstruct identity, hierarchy and colonial legacies using film and emerging technologies in digital art. 

Her work is characterized by speculative and emancipatory storytelling strategies, with a post-colonial lens fueled by her insider/outsider access and artistic perspective. Ainslee's non-fiction writing has been published by e-flux Architecture, Art Africa Magazine and Vogue Italia. Ainslee has worked on the production of several commercials as well as on the production team of the Addis Foto Fest ‘16 with renowned artist Aida Muluneh. She has written for Season One of Tibeb Girls, one of the first children’s animation series created in Ethiopia. She holds an M.S. in Fiction and Entertainment from the Southern California Institute of Architecture and a B.A. in Philosophy and French from The College of Wooster.

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Ainslee is based in Los Angeles. For collaboration, commercial, or press related inquiries please reach out to her at ainslee.robson@gmail.com.