With a GoPro strapped to his helmet and a microphone clipped to his bike, Chaz Antoine Barracks spent the summer pedaling through Homer, New York, transforming everyday encounters into both scholarship and art. The filmmaker, media scholar and postdoctoral fellow in the College of Visual and Performing Arts used his residency at the Center for the Arts of Homer to launch “Mic on a Bike,” an experimental storytelling project capturing the rhythms, voices and histories of small-town life.
Chaz Barracks’ installation at the Phillips Free Library in Homer
His concept was simple but intentional: ride a bike through town, record conversations and everyday reflections, and capture what Barracks calls the “speculative spectacular” of everyday life, building on his previous body of work and his scholarly lens.
Barracks is no stranger to turning the ordinary into something extraordinary. His award winning 2020 short film “Everyday Black Matter,” a visual meditation on Black life and joy in Richmond, Virginia, blended oral histories, dance and self-representation to create a moving portrait of community. His work was born during the isolation of the pandemic and exemplified his commitment to unique storytelling.
With a Ph.D. in media, art and text from Virginia Commonwealth University, Barracks has developed a scholarly body of work at the intersection of Black queer studies, performance and digital storytelling. His projects blend podcast interviews, photography, film and public installations to explore identity, memory and community.
Barracks’ mic on a bike
As a postdoctoral fellow at Syracuse, he continued to merge his art and his research. “I see media-making as inquiry and intervention,” he says. “It’s artistic and intellectual practice rooted in lived experience.”
Barracks says he is drawn to places that allow him to slow down and connect. Homer, at the gateway to the Finger Lakes, offered the perfect pace with its vibrant downtown business district, quaint Village Green and large, well-preserved federal historic district, surrounded by farmland, lakes and rolling hills. And the Center for the Arts was the perfect collaborator. Housed in a restored 1892 Romanesque church, the nonprofit visual and performing arts hub presents more than 150 events annually, attracting 25,000 people. “It’s focused on community building, and I appreciate that kind of grassroots arts activism,” Barracks says.
Linda Dickerson-Hartsock, strategic initiatives advisor at Syracuse University Libraries and a founder of the center, helped shape his residency after discussing his scholarship at Bird Library’s Mower Faculty Commons. Barracks’ vision resonated with her as both former founding executive director of the Blackstone LaunchPad and the Connective Corridor. “He brings artistry and scholarly depth that shifts how we think about place, storytelling and the role of art in connecting community,” she says.
Barracks at the Center for the Arts in Homer, New York
The residency followed principles of creative placemaking, using arts and culture to connect residents, foster belonging and spark dialogue around identity, history and shared values. Barracks’ work drew on the “slow movement” coupled with bike culture, both of which engage people with their surroundings at a human scale.
“Biking is joy for me,” Barracks says. “It is how I decompress, think and connect with nature. In Homer, it became a way to share knowledge, culture and history with the community.” Once a stop on the Underground Railroad, the town offers deep resonance for conversations about Black freedom, movement and mobility.
Barracks’ residency also included DJ sets at the Homer Farmers’ Market and other community art spaces and studios, where he mixed poetry and narrative exploring Black joy through sound. It culminated in a multimedia exhibition at the Phillips Free Library, featuring “Everyday Black Matter” alongside reflections of “Mic on a Bike” audio and visual material from his Homer residency. He incorporated curated books on Black and queer history and staged the library’s first-ever “after dark” event, transforming it into an experimental art gallery with music and ethereal stage lighting for a one-night pop-up.
Barracks’ approach is informed by Imagining America, a national consortium promoting democratic civic engagement through the arts and humanities that was housed at the University from 2007 to 2017. A longtime participant and recipient of its Stories of Change public scholarship award, he will share his work at its 2025 annual gathering this fall in New Mexico.
Barracks is now editing “Mic on a Bike” with a team of SU student filmmakers, building a growing digital archive that began with “Everyday Black Matter.” He sees media as both artifact and act, capturing presence, asserting worth and reflecting cultural memory. He envisions taking “Mic on a Bike” to other towns across the country and around the world.
“Biking itself is a mobile meditation,” he says. “It reinforces my belief in the image as profound proof of life. This is not just about recording others. It is about showing up fully as myself: Black, queer, neurodivergent, joyful, imperfect.”
