About Me

I am a documentary filmmaker, multimedia artist and trained attorney, based in Washington, DC. As the founder and creative director of social impact production company Unchained Stories, I am deeply committed to collaborative media-making and storytelling that advocates for a more just world by centering the voices of currently and formerly incarcerated people and communities impacted by systemic injustice.

As a filmmaker, multimedia artist, educator and advocate, I believe visual stories are the most powerful tools we have to encourage dialogue, promote connection and compassion, and inspire social change. I am committed to art- and media-making that creates pathways to inner and out transformation through self-reflection, personal and community healing and restorative justice. We are living at a transformational moment. The way we will dismantle systems of oppression is through art and stories that reimagine a different world. I continue to deepen my work and collaborations towards this vision for a radical way of healing and safety within ourselves and in our communities, justice built on love rather than retribution. 

In my personal practice, I explore photographs and moving images as poems, written in a unique visual language that is both the way I make meaning of the world within and the way I engage with it externally. My work uses photography, film, and found media to build poetic narratives that are intimate and emotional. I developed the technique of weaving photographs out of an exploration of double-exposure photography as a way to explore layers of myself, my own experience and the world around me.

As an educator, I have shared photography and multimedia tools with youth in Washington, DC, and Jacmel, Haiti, with undergraduate students at George Mason University, with incarcerated students within the DC Department of Corrections, with system-impacted creatives in partnership with the Justice Arts Coalition and with attorneys, advocates and changemakers through JUSTstories.

I am available to collaborate on multimedia storytelling projects in the DC area and around the globe.  

CONTACT

Email: kristin@kristinadair.com

Phone: 202.213.2070

Current Location: Washington, D.C.

AWARDS/GRANTS/FELLOWSHIPS

2019-2022      DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Artist Fellowship 

   2019-2021      Black Male Achievement Fellow, Echoing Green, New York, NY

    2019-202      Project Grant for Unchained Stories, Open Society Foundations, New York, NY

   2017-2018      Halcyon Arts Lab Fellow, Halcyon, Washington, DC

           2018      November 2018 Filmmaker of the Month Award, District of Columbia Office of Cable Television, Film, Music, and Entertainment

           2018      DC Oral History Collaborative Grant, Humanities DC, Washington, DC

           2018      Project Grant for film Becoming Free, DC Commission for Arts & Humanities, Washington, DC

   2014-2015      Corcoran Graduate Dean’s Merit Award, Corcoran School of the Arts & Design, Washington, DC

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS/SCREENINGS

           2019      Annual Juried Auction, Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, DC

           2019      #LifeTo16 Performance and Installation, Night of Ideas Festival, La Maison Française, Washington, DC

           2019      Becoming Free Screening and Conversation, A.C.T.O.R (A Continuing Talk on Race) Series, Busboys and Poets, Washington, DC         

           2018      Becoming Free Screening and Panel, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, DC

           2018      Stories from the WIRE, Screening and Panel Discussion, Busboys & Poets, Washington, DC

           2018      Special Jury Award for Becoming Free, Awareness Film Festival, Los Angeles, CA.

           2018      Becoming Free Screening and Panel, DC Department of Corrections, Washington, DC

           2018      “Cell 17” Multimedia Installation, By The People Festival, Washington, DC

           2018      Official Premiere of Becoming Free, By The People Festival, Washington, DC

           2018      Annual Juried Auction, Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, DC.

           2018      Group Exhibition “Exchanges,” IA&A at Hillyer Gallery, Washington, DC

           2017      Becoming Free Thesis Screening and Multimedia Installation, NEXT Graduate Thesis Exhibition, Corcoran School of the Arts & Design, Washington, DC

           2016      Juried Selection, Exposed DC 10th Anniversary Photography Exhibition, Washington, DC

           2016      Short Documentary Film MaleFemale, Official Selection, The Women's Film Festival, Philadelphia, PA; Wicked Queer: The Boston LGBT Film Festival; Reel Affirmations: Washington, DC's International LGBTQ Film Festival;  SouthSide Film Festival, Bethlehem, PA; Santa Fe Film Festival; Fringe! Queer Film and Arts Fest, London, England

           2015      Juried Selection, Women Photojournalists of Washington Annual Exhibition, Washington, DC.

           2015      Short Documentary Film Learning To Be Fearless, Official Selection, Northern Virginia International Film Festival, Alexandria, VA; Lighthouse International Film Festival, Long Beach Island, NJ

           2015      Doc-in-a-Day Festival, Winner, Stone Soup Films, Washington, DC