BIO.

Devon Vonnie Smith (b. Milwaukee, WI, 1991) is an interdisciplinary documentary artist currently living and working in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. Vonnie uses video, archival material, and photography as a means towards exploring the intersections, mechanics, and deconstruction of narrative, place, and language. Through video art and experimental documentary, Vonnie interrogates normalized anti-Black violence. Abolition is at the heart of Vonnie’s creative practice. Vonnie received his Master of Fine-Arts from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. 

Vonnie has shown work at the Milwaukee Film Festival and Milwaukee Short Film Festival in Milwaukee, WI, Walker’s Point Center for the Arts in Milwaukee, WI, Gallery 400 in Chicago, IL, The Smithsonian African American History Museum in Washington D.C., The Power Plant Gallery in Durham, North Carolina, Hayti Heritage Center in Durham, North Carolina, The Luminal Theatre in Brooklyn, New York, and The Southern Foodways Alliance at the University of Mississippi in University, Mississippi. 

In 2019, Vonnie participated as artist-in-residence at the Power Plant Gallery at Center for Documentary Studies with Duke University. Vonnie received a commission to develop work with the Southern Foodways Alliance for the Spring 2021 symposium.