Photo by Cynthia Berkshire Installation by Yayoi Kusama
Jahmani Perry is a Brooklyn-based visual artist, photographer, and filmmaker whose work explores the diverse beauty, mystery, aliveness, and complexities of the human condition at the intersection of race, class, gender, and identity, within our socially and culturally conditioned society. With a deep commitment to storytelling that explores and challenges a deeper understanding of our interconnection and the essence of who we are. His work blends documentary and experimental forms that question the different dimensions of how we perceive ourselves and one another individually and collectively.
Asphalt Spirits NYC Part I: 1976-1986 + Part II: 1999-2025 Journey into Awakening and Remembrance is a poetic photographic work and work-in-progress immersive photographic, film, and soundscape installation chronicling New York City and its people. The images are a meditation and celebration on the diverse beauty, mystery, and aliveness within the everyday lives and clashing realities of New Yorkers, navigating a city in constant transformation at the complex intersection of race, class, gender, wealth, poverty, power, identity, and social and cultural labeling and conditioning.
A Sony Innovators Award recipient, Jahmani’s films have aired on PBS/Thirteen WNET and been presented at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Walker Art Center, St. Louis Art Museum, The Kitchen, Lollapalooza, and Madonna’s Who’s That Girl Tour, among others. His 1994 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, Ashley Clark, film curator.
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 doc series), and Bill Moyers, and Marc Levin (Rikers: An American Jail / PBS doc 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.
Exciting developments are underway with Jahmani’s Asphalt Spirits NYC work and project, including upcoming second meetings with the Whitney Museum and the Fine Arts Museum in Boston, as well as continued discussions with the Museum of the City of New York, where curators have expressed interest in a potential exhibition.
Jahmani’s photographs are included in the private collections of Keith Haring, The Buhl Collection, Andy Spade, and others.
Jahmani is also currently co-creator, director, and executive producer—with partner Cynthia Berkshire and Academy-Award-nominated and multiple Emmy Award-winning executive producer Sam Pollard—on a television music documentary series in development.
*See CV below for a complete list of directing, producing, and photography credits.
Please visit the CONTACT page for inquiries regarding:
* Short and long-term assignments as Director / Producer / Creative Director /Associate Producer / Field Producer / Fashion, Editorial, and Documentary Photographer.
* Photographic work acquisitions of Asphalt Spirits NYC: Part I: 1976-1986 + Part II: 1999-2025 Journey into Awakening and Remembrance signed limited-edition prints.
* Creative consulting and advisor on documentary films, television, and photographic projects.
* As a sponsored artist through Fractured Atlas, sponsorships and donations can be made and will be tax deductible for Asphalt Spirits: NYC: Part I: 1976-1986 + Part II: 1999-2025 Journey into Awakening and Remembrance photographic and soundscape installation and photo book project. See the donation page for further details.
* Available for Documentary Filmmaker, Visual Artist / Photographer speaking engagements.