Trina Michelle Robinson (she/her/hers) is a San Francisco-based interdisciplinary artist. Her work focuses on the relationship between memory and migration where she studies the fragments of memory and repurposes them. The lives of her ancestors are the catalyst behind her artwork and their stories are woven into every detail. Why did they leave? What were they hoping to find? What remains? She wants to explore every fracture, fold and glitch to release the trauma that lives inside, while simultaneously uplifting the forgotten moments that should be celebrated. She does this using a somatic approach where a focus on materiality is key, whether that is explored by making her own paper using fibers connected to ancestry or creating a glitch in a film to represent release, recovery, imminent loss of a moment in time, or even a glimpse into the future.
Robinson’s work has been shown at the BlackStar Film Festival in Philadelphia, ICA San José, the San Francisco Art Commission Main Gallery, Minnesota Street Project, New York’s Wassaic Project and the triennial Bay Area Now 9 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. She had a solo exhibition at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), a Smithsonian Affiliate, as part of their Emerging Artist Program 2022-23, and was a 2024 SF MOMA SECA finalist. She was also nominated for the 2024 Anonymous Was A Woman (AWAW) Award.
Robinson previously worked in print and digital media in production at companies such as The New York Times T Magazine, Vanity Fair and Slack before receiving her MFA from California College of the Arts in 2022. As a storyteller she toured with The Moth Mainstage telling the story of discovering her ancestry on stages across the country including New York’s Lincoln Center and her stories aired on The Moth Radio Hour on NPR in 2019 and 2024.
Residency: October 2025 - January 2026
Art Exhibition: Friday, January 16 & Saturday, January 17 & Tuesday, January 20