Born in Paris and now currently tri-continental, dividing his time between France, the U.S,. and Senegal, artist Alexis Peskine says that the constant theme in
his work is questioning “national and
racial identity, the black body experience, and universal emotions."

With a Master’s Degree in Digital Art from Howard
University and an MFA from Maryland Institute of College of Art, Peskine says that his works, which have been shown in galleries and museums all over the world (including in the U.S, Europe
and across Africa) are inspired by
the work of  Kara Walker, Takashi
Murakami, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Banksy.

His latest video, "Alana Moons," displays a wide range of eclectic
influences, mixing science fiction and documentary filmmaking, creating something experimental that shows men and boys in a
Senegalese village going through certain rites of passage.

As the filmmaker say, his film is set to "an eerie electronic
music score [as] some of the boys and men don a kind of futuristic, Mad Max-style
armor, crafted of tin cans and industrial bags of rice. Those uniforms cribbed
together from trash suggest young men girding themselves for some unseen
battle, donning the materials available to them."

The film soon becomes more of a documentary, focusing on male
villagers wielding clubs and knives, leading young boys through some rite of
passage, with suggestions of assault and violence.

Peskie adds that his intent is to show a “ritualized,
theatrical form of violence, very different from the violence some young black
men face in the U.S."

Check out "Alana
Moons" below: