There Goes Nikki

There Goes Nikki is an immersive AR memorial honoring the legendary poet, activist, and intellectual Nikki Giovanni, premiering at the 2025 Tribeca Festival. Created by Idris Brewster – co-founder of Kinfolk – and his parents, Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson – directors of the Emmy and Sundance Award winning Documentary, Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project. The exhibition is a deeply personal, spatial experience that serves as both a tribute and a celestial sendoff for one of America’s most iconic voices. Building on the Emmy Award-winning documentary Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project, directed by [Joe] Brewster and Stephenson, this AR installation reimagines her legacy through poetry, volumetric hologram and immersive design.

The experience is centered around Giovanni’s recitation of "Quilting the Black-eyed Pea (We’re Going to Mars)”, a poem originally chosen for its resonance with Nikki’s spirit and vision. The poem, which entwines themes of space, memory, water, the transatlantic slave trade and Black futurism, becomes the guiding narrative for the journey from Earth to the oceanic past and finally to the stars. With her recent passing, this poem becomes not just a metaphor, but a ritual and vessel for transition.

Produced by Kinfolk and Rada Collaborative, the project marks a rare use of volumetric capture to create a hologram of Giovanni reciting the poem. This was made possible through an intimate collaboration with the late Giovanni and her wife, with capture sessions taking place at her home in Virginia and at Virginia Tech. Giovanni, winner of the prestigious Robert Frost Award, was the chronicler of the Black Arts movement and was an innovative poet and historian. The result of the collaboration is a strikingly lifelike 3D presence, surrounded by floating orbs representing elements of memory, space and nature - some rendered through AI.

Physically installed as a spiral altar at Water Street Associates (WSA) and filled with African marigolds, the project blends corporeal ritual with digital immersion, embodying both mourning and celebration. The spiral, reminiscent of diasporic patterns and cosmic cycles, invites viewers into a reflective, almost sacred space where Giovanni’s image and voice become a portal.

There Goes Nikki is more than a technical innovation for Kinfolk, it is a creative departure grounded in family, reverence and Black imagination. Developed in collaboration with Idris Brewster and his parents, Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson, the project continues their shared exploration of Nikki Giovanni’s legacy. This time, [Idris] Brewster leads the way, guiding the technical execution and AR development. Currently exclusive to Tribeca, the piece is a fleeting, sacred offering available only in this moment, under these stars.