Statement:
I use performance as an investigative tool. My extended projects involve a variety of media, including painting and photography, and culminate in video, performance, 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, and the performances therein. 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 ‘expert’ – HEADTalks, for which I use notable lectures and speeches 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. She 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 (The Vargas Museum), Cologne (CologneOFF Video Festival), Paris (Galerie White Projects), Belfast (University of Ulster) – and she has performed extensively within Southern California at such venues as The Velaslavasay Panorama Theater, MOCA, Machine Project, Beyond Baroque, The Smell, West Hollywood Book Fair, Ear Meal, and most recently at the Downtown Winterfest and at the PST Black Box. 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 has recently appeared in 30<30: Anthology of Innovative Fiction (Starcherone Press) and Imaginary Syllabi (Palm Press). Adair has been awarded fellowships at the Akademie Schloss Solitude (Film/Video/New Media Fellow) in Stuttgart (Germany), Digital Arts Studios (Belfast), and I-Park Foundation (Moving Image, and Performance Fellowships) in Connecticut, and 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
www.vimeo.com/danielleadair
www.first-assignment.com
www.elephantartspace.com