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Jazzy Harvey
Founder Thatmiddlechild Productions

Jamaican chef-model, creative techpreneur & multimedia storyteller, Jazzy Harvey is a multi-threat. Born the middle of three girls to a Jamaican mother and Black and Native father in South Central Los Angeles, Jazzy Harvey prides herself on intentional and original content creation and output that empowers frequently misrepresented communities. She earned her BA from Cornell University where she studied Socio-cultural Anthropology, Africana Studies, and Global Health with a collective focus on urban community development. Jazzy aspires to use the intersections of technology, art, fashion, food, multimedia forms, and education to amplify the voices of those often unheard and unseen. With a deep understanding of how people are linked across all channels, Jazzy strives to channel authentic lived experiences through storytelling. In 2017 after deciding to fore-go medical school and explore a career in creative technology, Jazzy Harvey co-founded Honey Fry & founded Thatmiddlechild Productions. HoneyFry is a creative brand boutique that provides creative marketing solutions for brand development through targeted research and user centered design. Specializing in rebranding and offering services such as web design & development, 360 branding, product & graphic design, and social media strategy, HoneyFry’s clients range from USC, the city of St.Louis, and a number of small businesses. Thatmiddechild Productions is as a creative platform to celebrate the lives of silenced communities and make new media more accessible by authentically commemorating and documenting the realities of these communities through personal narrative, textured sound, and portraiture. Using a “for the people, by the people” approach, its mission is to disrupt and serve as a catalyst to connect, motivate, and inspire through immersive storytelling that is not easily forgotten. Thatmiddlechild’s premiere transmedia project “Built Not Bought”, a rhythmic documentary following the stories of young men and the car culture of South Central Los Angeles, garnered nationwide attention in both the anthropology & immersive fields, showing in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, NYC, Twin Cities & Vancouver. Jazzy has traveled the country as a guest speaker at NYU, CSULB, CSUN, LA Mission College, Oculus, Blacks in Technology Conference (BITCON), and American Anthropological Association Conference (CASCA-AAA) discussing topics ranging from “The Design and Construction of a Smart Pipeline” to "Reclaiming Identities through Virtual Reality Storytelling". In 2019, Jazzy’s team “Brain Rap” won the “People’s Choice Award” at MIT’s Media Lab’s Creating Reality Hackathon, becoming the first Black-led team to do so. 

TALKS

Nov 11

01:15 PM - 02:10 PM

Grand Ballroom G
Media, Sports & Leisure

The Space is the Story: Ethnographic Storytelling with XR

Jazzy Harvey | Thatmiddlechild Productions

Julia Beabout | Novaby

R. Scott Wilson | CSU Long Beach