Immersive exhibit celebrates Nikki Giovanni's life and poetry

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culture 2:40 Immersive exhibit celebrates Nikki Giovanni's life and poetry

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10 Dec 2025 72

Virginia Tech celebrates the late Nikki Giovanni through an immersive exhibit at the Center for the Arts. The exhibit uses video projection of graphics and photos with an original music score to highlight six of Giovanni's poems read by Giovanni herself. This exhibit will move to the Torpedo Factory Art Center in 2026.

Poetry and Readings: Nikki Giovanni

Poetic Arrangement: Brittney S. Harris and Charles Nichols

Music: Charles Nichols

Embodied Movement: Brittney S. Harris

Motion Capture: Trevor Finney and Alice Macanga

Motion Graphics and Graphic Design: Meaghan Dee, Trevor Finney, Demetrya Dye, and Lexy Altieri

Project Advisor: Gena E. Chandler, PhD

Project Management: Meaghan Dee

ICAT Technical Support: Gustavo Araoz, David Franusich, Brandon Hale, and Tanner Upthegrove

Additional Thanks to Kelsey Hammer, Ella Shaffer, and Morgan Weidling for participating in creative brainstorming sessions.

Special thanks to Virginia Fowler for permission, time, and poetry consultation.

Additional thanks to Virginia Tech, President Sands, the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology (ICAT), the University Libraries at Virginia Tech, and the Center for the Arts for supporting this project.

And thank you to Nikki Giovanni for her incredible life and legacy.

We've been working on this project called the Nicky Giovanni Immersive Experience and we're so thankful to Nicky Giovanni and her partner Virginia Fowler for their permission to let us use the poetry in this way. So we have motion graphics and embodied motion that was captured with motion capture as well as music that was composed for this that aligns with different recordings of Nicky Giovanni speaking to poetry at different times in her life. and we've selected six different poems that will be on display for this December 9th event. Megan hired me to make the graphics for Nikki Giovanni, so there were six different poems that we focused on. One of them was quilts that I contributed to, and I just went in and stitched the memories for her and was just setting the scene, basically. When I think about my thought process on how to connect the words to movement, especially embodying and working with Nikki Giovanni's work, I connect my own relationship to those words and the rhythm. For instance, if she misses about home, what does home make me want to do with my body? And I start to find what are some gestures or movement that can either abstractedly or clearly convey the message of the work itself. Very early in my time here, I got to know how important Nikki Giovanni was to the community. The exhibit today is just so satisfying in the sense that it gives you a feeling that you're with her. And the thing that was most impactful for me was hearing her voice over a period of decades. That headed a dimension that you actually can't get live, so that was very special. So new to the Cube this year is a projection system that we are calling CHIPS, which is the Cube High Immersion Projection Systems. It's a 17-foot on-each-side square, almost a cube within a cube, which allows for some really great shared immersive experiences. One of the nicest pieces of feedback we got was, it felt like sitting in a room with Nikki. And to me, that would be such the ultimate goal of just giving someone the opportunity to feel like you're here with Nikki Giovanni's words and her poetry. And our team has been so thankful to be able to be a small part of that. On a rainy day when I'm sitting in a tree looking for a friend, I hope you'll be the one standing at the root, holding out your arms to gently catch my fall.