Walis Johnson

Walis Johnson is an interdisciplinary artist/filmmaker whose work documents the experience and poetics of the urban landscape through oral history,ethnographic film, and artist walking practices.  She is particularly interested in the intersection of documentary film, performance and socially engaged art. Walis explores hidden fissures of culture and history that upend our understanding of the political, economic and cultural structures we use to define the American condition and ourselves. Her practice consists of multiple works grouped around specific themes and meanings. Discussions that emerge are expansive, open-ended and grow richer over time. Her current work – The Red Line Archive Project – activates conversations about the personal and political affects of redlining using her own family story growing up in Brooklyn.

She is a 2017 Culture Push Fellow for Utopian Practice and is a resident artist of Walking Lab, an international research project and collaborative network of artists, arts organizations, activists, scholars and educators.  Walis holds a BA in history from Williams College and MFA from Hunter College in Interactive Media and Advanced Documentary film, has taught at Parsons School of Design and has extensive experience in policy and philanthropy, collaborating with community-based organizations citywide, in San Francisco and nationally.