American Roulette: Navigating Gun Culture and Our Violent Society

Folleh Shar Francis Tamba is a filmmaker and interdisciplinary artist with a BA in Film and Video Production from Columbia College, a BA in Justice Studies from Northeastern Illinois University, and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts and Media from Columbia College. He was born in Chicago and spent his early life in Liberia, Africa where he witnessed the country's civil war and subsequent intervention by the United States Marine Corps, inspiring him to enlist in 2003. His collection of triggered memories in combat are processed into a variety of visual formats, providing viewers a glimpse into the gruesome realities of modern warfare.

Tamba’s art in the American Roulette exhibition at ACC communicates the artist's point of view as a ground soldier in active combat through descriptive language. We are the Infantry is a text-based video that carries a poem in white on black text with no sound. The words illustrate what images can not, forcing the viewer to imagine the graphic sensations of war and the inner psyche of the artist. Two of his journals from his time in combat are on display alongside the video. Viewers are encouraged to engage with the journals which include personal essays, poems, letters, and photographs from his time in the military.