Jury
Charles Fairbanks
Charles Fairbanks is a filmmaker, writer, translator and wrestler from rural Nebraska. His films have shown on POV and at Art of the Real, Oberhausen, CPH:DOX, Slamdance, Visions du Réel, and hundreds of festivals across six continents. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, MacDowell, Yaddo, and the Wexner Art Center’s Film/Video Studio Program.
Fairbanks has worked as a programmer and translator in Belgium, taught videoarte and cel-phone videography in Mexico, and written for Senses of Cinema, DesistFilm and the Millenium Film Journal. He founded the Media Arts program at Antioch College, where he was awarded tenure in 2018. Charles now lives with his daughter in Oaxaca, Mexico, while he edits a documentary about the fastest-growing sport in the U.S.A.: women’s wrestling
Trina Robinson
Trina Michelle Robinson is an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores the relationship between memory and migration. She studies the fragments of memory and repurposes them, examining every fracture, fold and glitch to release trauma, while simultaneously uplifting the forgotten moments that should be celebrated.
Her work has been shown at the BlackStar Film Festival in Philadelphia, ICA San José, Minnesota Street Project, San Francisco Art Commission Main Gallery, New York’s Wassaic Project, and the triennial Bay Area Now 9 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Her solo exhibition at the Museum of the African Diaspora, a Smithsonian Affiliate, was part of their Emerging Artist Program 2022-23. As a storyteller, she traveled the country telling the story of exploring her ancestry with The Moth Mainstage at Lincoln Center in New York, and other cities across the country. Her stories aired on NPR’s The Moth Radio Hour in October 2019 and 2024.
Melisa Sanders
Melisa Sanders, RA, NOMA, SEED, is the founding Principal of BlackArc, a design collaborative advancing racial, economic, and social equity through community- centered design. A licensed architect, urban designer, educator, and advocate, she focuses on sustainable, equitable solutions for disinvested and BIPOC communities. With over a decade of experience, Melisa’s work integrates architecture, urban design, and social justice, exploring design justice, trauma informed design, and architecture as a tool for resistance. She mentors students in inclusive design practices at Washington University in St. Louis and engages in global research across South Africa, Dubai, and Germany. She has held leadership roles with STLNOMA, DeSales Community Development, and Design As Protest, advocating for anti-racist design. Named a Fellow of the Association for Community Design, she also serves as Director of Community Engagement for Counterpublic and was appointed by St. Louis Mayor Tishaura O. Jones to the Prop NS Stabilization Advisory Committee
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