Self-Description
As an artist, I find myself an observer of the city and its people. People—each in their own little worlds, their own particular spaces—connect us to the universal themes that have preoccupied humanity throughout the ages. When I observe my neighbors and fellow citizens, I see them in the context of their stories – characters in an open book or perhaps a book of poetry. The stories unfold through a poetic and symbolic language of video. Not all the stories are happy. They are not all of love. Some are painful, difficult. But, together, they give the story of the place. Recently, I’ve taken on the minimalist Japanese Haiku. As we all know, Haiku combines form, content and language to create a powerful and compact message that captures everyday things, feelings and experiences. Using digital video, Super 8 film, still shots, animation and other techniques, I find myself coming back again and again to the possibilities of visual poetry and the chance it offers to unite language, sound and image. And I have found that poetry is not only the word, it can be music and color and special effects. It allows the camera to become a pen.

Bio
Alberto Roblest’s visual poetry, digital still art and installations have been exhibited in museums, galleries and public art spaces in his native Mexico, the United States, Spain, India and in several other countries. He has won awards including fellowships from The Mexican Fund for Culture and the Arts and video and film festival prizes. In all, he has produced more than four dozen videos and published six volumes of poetry. In Mexico, his work was the subject of retrospectives in 2006 and 2007. He received a degree in Communications Science from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) where later worked as a professor. Before moving to Washington, DC in April of 2006, he was a member of VideoSpace, a group of Boston-area video artists and curators, and the East Boston Artist Group. Mr. Roblest's exhibitions include: the Festival der Nationen in Austria, San Francisco Cin(E)-Poetry Video Festival, Los Angeles International Film Festival, “Interferences” 2nd Festival International d’Arts Multimedia Urbains en France, Funcion Video Festival de Minimetrajes Barcelona, Zebra Poetry Film Festival Germany, Sadho Poetry Film Festival in India, The Bronx Film and Video Festival, the Boston Underground Film Festival, la IV Video Biennale Mexico, Festival of Experimental Literature TEXT-FEST V, Festival Mundial Do Minuto Brazil, the Deuxieme Manifestation Internationale du Video at Montreal, Festival Internacional de Cine Uruguay, The New York Not Still Art Festival, and the San Antonio Texas CineFestival among others. Also he has showing at Museum Contemporary of Barcelona, Museum of Image and Sound in Brazil, Contemporary Museum of Maracaibo-Venezuela, Digital Art Salon Habana Cuba, Museum Carrillo Gil, Museum Contemporary of Oaxaca (MACO), Contemporary Museum of Yucatan, Museum Rufino Tamayo, and Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City. His digital piece entitled “The Inner of the Outer” was selected by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities for the spring 2008 Art Walk exhibition. Hi won the DC Media Artist Fellowship 2009 Program.