Photo by Cynthia Berkshire Installation by Yayoi Kusama
Jahmani is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker, photographer, and multidisciplinary artist whose work explores the beauty, mystery, wonder, and contradictory aspects of the human condition and what it means to be human within our racially, socially, culturally and politically conditioned society. His work blends documentary and poetic experimental forms, pushing the boundaries of nonfiction storytelling and examining the many dimensions of how we perceive ourselves, one another, and the nature of reality-both individually and collectively.
Asphalt Spirits NYC Part I: 1976-1986 + Part II: 1999-2026, A Journey into Awakening and Remembrance is a ongoing poetic photographic work; which Jahmani is currently developing into a photographic, film and soundscape installation and photo book. It explores the many dimensions of the human spirit, and the everyday interior lives and realities of New Yorkers, staged on the unpredictable and chaotic streets of the city. The individual images are an inquiry and celebration of the diverse beauty, mystery, aliveness, vulnerability, joy, and paradoxical nature, held within our individual and interconnected existence. Through this work, Jahmani also probes the deep ties between the heart, soul, and lived experiences of New Yorkers across decades, and the constant transformation of a city, where race, class, gender, identity, wealth, power, and culture intersect and collide.
A Sony Innovator’s Award recipient for filmmaking, Jahmani’s films have aired on PBS/Thirteen WNET and have been presented at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Walker Art Center, St. Louis Art Museum, The Kitchen, Lollapalooza Music Concert Tour, and Madonna’s Who’s That Girl Tour, among others. His short film, Why Am I A Threat?, featuring Ice Cube, was featured in BAM’s (Brooklyn Academy of Music) 2019 film series, Black 90s: A Turning Point in American Cinema, curated by Ashley Clark.
Jahmani has collaborated and worked on film and television projects with Oliver Stone (Nixon / film), Joss Whedon (Buffy The Vampire Slayer /television series), John Dahl (The Last Seduction/film), Orlando Bagwell (Matters of Race / PBS documentary series), and Bill Moyers, and Marc Levin (Rikers: An American Jail / PBS documentary film). He studied filmmaking at Pratt Institute, received a directing fellowship at the American Film Institute, and was a documentary fellow with The Gotham Project Involve.
Jahmani’s photographs from Asphalt Spirits NYC Part I: 1976-1986 + Part II: 1999-2026 are included in the private collections of Keith Haring, The Buhl Collection, Andy Spade, and others.
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