Description

Gherdai Hassell is a multidisciplinary contemporary artist , whose work is developed through a process of auto – ethnography connecting her own experience and academic research to larger, cultural, historical, political meanings and understandings. Inspired by childhood imaginings, her work investigates memory and nostalgia to create unexpected narratives surrounding identity. Drawing on an Afro futurist perspective, Her work typically centers the Black female body, simultaneously existing within realms of past, present, and future. Diasporic pasts become re-informed by Black futures, where the resulting present is experienced as a living “Artifacts” and “Alibii”. Her work is an exploration of identity as an exploration of materials, and social practice. The work suggests that identity should be self-determined and understood, and contextualized through connection with others. Her multimedia work reimagines relationships with the body as avatar, social space and the invisible world.