Overview
Gisela McDaniel is a diasporic, indigenous, Chamorro artist based in Detroit who for years has collaborated with survivors of various forms of violence through a practice that mobilizes storytelling as a method for healing. Recording interviews and conversations with people who want to share their stories, McDaniel creates soundscapes that go beyond bearing witness to violence and instead center narratives of care and perseverance. These soundscapes are remixed to allow for McDaniel’s collaborators to share as much or as little of their story as they want. Accompanying these soundscapes are intricately textured paintings of McDaniel’s collaborators that she creates through in-person sittings or photographs that people send to her. In these paintings, individuals are often portrayed through a gaze that privileges the possibilities of their future rather than just the burdens of their past. Wearing their favorite articles of clothing and incorporating objects of important significance to them, McDaniel’s collaborators are seen anew in her works. For Things With Feathers, TMR’s trio of projects for Art Rise, McDaniel will conduct interviews with individuals in Los Angeles and elsewhere whose experiences with violence shed light on the injustices and inequities that the pandemic has exacerbated. McDaniel will record their stories, and create a soundscape to accompany a major public mural of her collaborators on the façade of TMR’s building at the southernmost edge of Downtown LA. The textured, mixed-media mural and accompanying sound work will highlight various experiences of healing, and remind us that there will be vibrant lives to live after this moment.
