Statement:
I use performance as an investigative tool. My extended projects involve a variety of media and culminate in video, performance, photography, and texts. In my practice I play within the conventions of historical, political, and pop discourse to bring attention to the institutions and roles we culturally inhabit. I have made work as a ‘war journalist’ – First Assignment, for which I embedded with Forces in Afghanistan; as a ‘mental health care professional’ – Selma,, for which I worked in Community Mental Health Centers; as a ‘tourist’ – On the Rocks, In the Land, for which I have visited Berlin, Belfast, the Mexican-American border, and other regions with ‘walls’; through the lens of an ‘icon’ – In Song and Dorothy Parker, for which I use Parker’s ‘lost’ poems as material; as well as other narratively-defined roles. These projects aim to ethically engage with contemporary issues by actively blurring the distinction between documentary and performance. Ultimately, I am interested in the point at which narrative and title collapse, the point where culturally-generated meaning both coalesces and reinvents itself.
Danielle Adair lives and works in Los Angeles. She earned a BA with Honors from The University of Chicago, and an MFA in Visual Arts and in Writing from California Institute of the Arts, and is the recipient of the 2010 California Community Foundation Visual Arts Fellowship and the Louis Sudler Prize in the Performing and Creative Arts (Chicago). Adair’s video works have shown internationally – Manila, Cologne, Paris, Belfast – and she has performed extensively within Southern California at such venues as The Velaslavasay Panorama Theater, MOCA, Machine Project, Beyond Baroque, and most recently on Ear Meal. Adair is the author of From JBAD: Lessons Learned (Les Figues Press) based on her time as embedded media with US Forces in Afghanistan, and other writing of hers has recently appeared in 30<30: Anthology of Innovative Fiction (Starcherone Press) and Imaginary Syllabi (Palm Press). She is a member of the artist-run studio and exhibition space Elephant in Los Angeles.
[Link to CV]
Bio:
daniellecorrell [at] gmail [dot] com