Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley

GETTING HOME SAFE

Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, We Are Here Because of Those That Are Not (2020), interactive online archive (https://blacktransarchive.com/). Courtesy the artist

From Monday 11 July to Monday 22 August 2022, Spike Island presents GETTING HOME SAFE (2022), a newly commissioned interactive artwork by artist Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley.

“YOU ARE WALKING HOME ALONE AT NIGHT. SOMEONE IS WALKING BEHIND YOU. AS YOU QUICKEN YOUR PACE YOU GLANCE OVER YOUR SHOULDER. ARE THEY FOLLOWING YOU? YOU GRIP YOUR KEYS IN YOUR POCKET. THEY COULD GET YOU HOME SAFE…OR BE USED AS A WEAPON TO DEFEND YOURSELF. EITHER WAY YOU PROMISE YOURSELF, YOU’LL GET HOME SAFE

BUT THAT FUTURE IS OUT OF YOUR HANDS”

GETTING HOME SAFE is a pro-Black, pro-Trans game in which viewers explore what it means to GET HOME SAFE when your safety is not guaranteed. Unfolding real-time within the digital space, players’ choices influence the narrative of the game and ultimately determine if they get home safe or if they stop someone else from getting home.

As part of Brathwaite-Shirley’s ongoing work to archive a Black Trans experience, GETTING HOME SAFE centres ideas of responsibility and care. It challenges the player to understand how their actions and choices impact on other people’s lives. Are your actions contributing to a world that makes it easier for others to breath or are you the reason why others are slowly being erased?

“BLACK TRANS LIFES MATTER

BUT DO THEY MATTER TO YOU WHEN YOU CAN’T SEE THEM?”

Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley

Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley (born 1995, lives and works in Berlin, Germany) is an artist working in animation, sound, performance, and video games to communicate the experiences of being a Black Trans person. Their practice focuses on recording the lives of Black Trans people and intertwining lived experience with fiction to imaginatively retell Trans stories. Spurred on by a desire to record the “History of Trans people both living and past,” their work can often be seen as a Trans archive where Black Trans people are stored for the future. Throughout history, Black queer and Trans people have been erased from the archives. Because of this it is necessary not only to archive their existence, but to record the many creative narratives they have used and continue to use to share their experiences. In 2022, Brathwaite-Shirley produced a solo performance work at the Serpentine, London. Recent solo exhibitions have taken place at Skanes Konstforening, Sweeden (2022); Arebyte Gallery, London (2021); Quad, Derby (2021); Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea and Science Gallery, London (both 2020). Their work has been included in group exhibitions at Julia Stoscheck Collection (2022); Anka Kultys Gallery, London (2022); Transmediale, Berlin (2021); Alright Knox, New York (2021); MU, Eindhoven (2020); Les Urbaines, Lausanne (2019); Copeland Gallery, London (2019) and Barbican, London (2018).