“America was the only place where a text in my work has been censored,” explains Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley. A video game that the 29-year-old British artist had done to go home alone at night had been exhibited in the United States. The accompanying wall text presented the expression “your state failed you”. But the gallery “declared that the use of the word” state “was too political”.
The gallery also prevented children from accessing the room. “Because I was trans, the parents had to oppose to allow children to see my work,” she said. “It was not a violent game. It was not a question of trans -nurses as a whole – it was not the main objective. It was (it was a question) of going home. But America was the only place where children were not allowed to enter.”
Experiences like this underlie the artist's video installations and immersive games – which were shown in MoMA, Berghain and Tate Modern in Berlin – on the preservation of people omitted from history, emphasizing trans lives. During a video call, Brathwaite-shirley lists the eclectic influences that range from artists such as Sondra Perry and Travis Alabanza to the combo of puppets video game studio and Solid metal designer Hideo Kojima. Highly PS1, a community of developers who create low -resolution horror games, is “extreme inspiration”.
His games can be visual labyrinths full of strangely striking visual references. But they are more than that. Take Black trans archive (2020), in which the player is questioned for the first time on his identity – if they are “black and trans”, “trans” or “cis” – determining their path through virtual space.
The work will be presented in Frieze New York in a solo stand presented by the Gallery Public in London, alongside other games and drawings. “We show Blacktranssea (2021) “, explains Brathwaite -shirley.” You go on the trip of your ancestors – that they were taken through the ocean, or that they travel to take other people through the ocean. If your ancestors are people who transport people across the ocean, this ship can never go to its destination. It always flows.
Then there is the most intense game that the artist has ever done – No space for redemption (2024). This is war, sport, police, border security, love and question family members. “They are also online people who cause trauma to other people and use this trauma as content for themselves.” Each section is inspired by conversations, dreams and experiences that Brathwaite-Shirley had. “This particular piece is very diaritic.”
The artist will not go to the United States, where President Trump's decrees have targeted the rights of the trans people. “I'm sad not to go,” says Brathwaite-shirley. “It's too scary to travel.”
The idea behind each work usually starts with a conversation. “My job is to listen to and collect extracts from what they say. Images that are important to them or that are. “We” is a group of coders and trans developers. Using software such as Blender and Gimp, they can create anything, from a figure to a landscape to an object within 15 minutes. However, there is a rule – once it has been created, it cannot be deleted. It doesn't matter if it is terrible or spelled incorrectly, everything must enter the room.
“At the start, when I started, I wanted work to be an archive,” explains the artist. “I would start by taking pictures of trans people and putting them in the game. (But), I found that when I do something and deleted it, I felt like I was thinking about the person. I was almost part of the same erasure that I think the archives.
Brathwaite-shirley was born in 1995 and grew up in Streatham, southern London. “My grandmother was an Adventist on the seventh day, so we would go to an Adventist Church on the seventh day. A very happy church, “I am possessed on the weekend,” says the artist. Growing up, Brathwaite-shirley has become more and more fascinated by video games. “I would dream in Loss Graphics, but imagine my family in there. A shy and artistic child, interested in the way things were built, Brathwaite-shirley was “a great nerd at heart”.
After studying at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, Berlin beckon. “I think the pace of life in London is very fast. In Berlin, I live by a lake very far from the city and it allows me to spend all this time thinking. ”
His first works were long animations with complex scenarios. One of them was called Blackzilla (2018). It was an AI that returns to earth after a long period and decides to make an atmosphere that is not breathable for trans people. “(It was) entertaining, but for messaging, ineffective.”
In recent works, the artist says: “I want to activate people's brains and allow them to have conversations with people they don't like. With people who don't care. With people with whom they think they have nothing in common. ”
Brathwaite-shirley does not expect the public to arrive with fully trained ideas but rather to be open to new thoughts. “We have lost, especially in London, many community centers. It is very difficult to go to a physical space where you can confuse a subject that you do not fully understand. You seem to be an expert to talk about the subject. And if you don't, the consequences can be quite disastrous. ”
A participatory performance in Tate Modern last year “was found like this (big) conversation that would not stop. We have turned well over time. People have just spoken, spoken and spoken and spoken. ” It was proof, concluded the artist, from the importance of offline meetings.
For an exhibition at Serpentine in the fall, the artist creates a work in which the only function is to encourage participants to talk to each other. “The game controls all the lights of space. It controls the environment as well as the subjects of conversation. It is a game which is not only purely linked to the game (but) makes you divert the screen and in someone's eyes.”
The heart of the art of Brathwaite -shirley lies in what happens to the player – especially once the game is finished. This is “what you leave, rather than what you see,” says the artist. “I would not want someone to say that the work of art is beautiful, even if it is. I would prefer that he say “I felt” or “I didn't like” or “I must think of X”. “
May 7-11, Frieze.com
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