Kevin Jerome Everson

While suffering with an acute sore throat, Shadeena Brooks seeks the help of an ear nose and throat doctor. After a problem with her layrnx is diagnosed, which has resulted in her losing her voice on a daily basis, she undergoes a hearing test. The thorough yet routine medical examination triggers a flashback. It awakes the memory of an event which Brooks had long since repressed, and which it seems she has not yet adequately processed. Brooks tells us of the events of March 9^th 2010 in Mansfield, Ohio. She was an eyewitness as DeCarrio Antwan Couley was shot down in cold blood in front of her home following an argument with a friend. As an artist, Kevin Jerome Everson engages with the lives of the Afro-American working classes in the USA, giving voice to a social group who often go unheard. Inspired by first hand experience, Everson also uses Ears, Nose and Throat to thematize the socio-economic problems of coexistence in a society still shaped by discrimination, taking the example of the brutal murder of his own son.

His film combines staged and documentary footage, fiction and real elements. Images of the crime scene are mixed with the test tones of the staged medical examination. The visuals from the medical practice are combined with the soundtrack of Shadeena Brooks’ descriptions, which resemble a form of interrogation. In this way, Everson succeeds in raising awareness of a highly current theme, the abuse of firearms in the USA, which costs countless individuals their lives every year. (Justus Lambrecht)