Diane Fellows

Contesting and Bridging Boundaries and Borders: the US-Mexico Indigenous and Migration Experience,(Collaborative Installation: multi-media).

2023 The European Cultural Centre (ECC) 6th edition of “Time Space Existence”, an architecture biennial exhibition in Venice, Italy, May 20th - November 26th 2023, in parallel with La Biennale Architettura.

Collaborators: Diane Fellows, immersive video: Adrian Jesus Falcon (Falcon Art Center Foundation, Del Rio, Texas) and Diana Lizbeth Zuñiga Hernandez (founder of Global Indigenous Collective), paintings and mural process; Gion DeFrancesco,(scenographer and technical director, Department of Theatre, Miami University), technical collaborator;  Miami University Dept. of Architecture and Interior Design Studio Boundaries, Borders and the Imaginary 2021 and 2023.

Installation video (YouTube link). The immersive video captures the experience of border communities in situ: indigenous languages and migration narratives, border landscapes and personal stories of crossing or the inability to cross the US–Mexico border. The installation video and audio reshape the exhibition’s participants expectations of the Palazzo space. 

Two participatory murals (one by Architecture Studio Boundaries, Borders and the Imaginary, 2023; one by Art School Michelangelo Guggenheim, Mestre, Venice) of personal narratives of boundaries, borders and their personal and political constructions (facilitated by Falcon and Hernandez). See installation images below.

Online Gallery (link) of Miami University Architecture and Interior Design Studio Boundaries, Borders and the Imaginary highlighting the studio process addressing migration across the US-Mexico border at Del Rio, TX, – Acuña, Mexico. Installation includes streamed video of Student Reflections (link) and Studio Processes (link).

Article(link): News from the College of Creative Arts, Miami University (Ohio)

On the Question of Power

Amman, Jordan; Hwy 15, Jordan. Assemblage at varying scales. Amman, Jordan; Hwy 15, Jordan. The Roman Temple of Hercules sits on the Amman citadel, Jordan. Hercules’ hand lies on the ground. On Jordan’s north-south route Hwy15, a village seems abandoned except for a woman running along the road; figures watch from the street above; army parachutists descend.

2021  Purchase Prize: The permanent collection of the Gardiner Gallery of Art, Oklahoma State University Art Museum. Cimarron National Works on Paper Exhibition, (Juror: Larissa Goldston, Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE), NYC).

2020  11th Biennial PhotoMidwest Juried Exhibition, Madison, WI. (Juror: International Photojournalist Peter Turnley)

2019  39th Annual National Juried Exhibition, “A Sense of Place”, Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art, Augusta, GA (Juror: Anne Marchand)

This Water Cuts Its Own Course

Artist and educator Gail Della-Piana tells her family’s story beginning from mid-19th century slavery on a plantation in Washington, Georgia, through to contemporary personal events. Gail Della-Piana’s story is told through long-distance interviews, archival documents and footage, juxtaposed with Generation-Z storyteller, Kendra Soler, defining her voice.

This Water Cuts Its Own Course is an experimental interpretive documentary short, filmed primarily through Zoom under the health pandemic conditions of 2020. At certain moments, the green screen process is evident. This is left untouched revealing a transparency of the filming process and of the storytelling process.

2021 Toronto International Women’s Film Festival. Awarded: Gold Laurel, Best Historical Film.

2020 Digital Fringe Theatre Festival, Miami University, Theatre Department, College of Creative Arts premiered Nov. 6, 2020

Kaskia San Whose Are You

2021 We Gather Together in Music series. Episode 9: Andalusian Romance. Miami University Performing Arts Series, College of Creative Arts, University Symphony Orchestra Production. Premiered May 25, 2021

Filmed in 2007 at the Holocaust Memorial, Berlin, a woman sang a Roma ballad as she protested the lack of Roma representation. Unknown to me at the time, the woman was Petra Gelbart, Romani educator, scholar, and musician.

For the full presentation video of "Episode 9: Andalusian Romance“ click: Episode 9: Andalusian Romance featuring "Romanza Andaluza” by Pablo de Sarasate performed by principals of the Miami University Symphony Orchestra string quartet, soloist Harvey Thurmer, violin, and Ricardo Averbach, Director Miami University Symphony Orchestra Interview with Petra Gelbart, featured in "Kaskia San Whose Are You".

Territories. The Empty Room, 2022 (Third iteration. Formerly titled “Kissed Away. The Empty Room”. The work has evolved into a series of digital film, photography, and prose under the title “Territories”)

Territories. The Empty Room is a self-portrait film. Composed of an archival 35mm self-portrait photograph, current digital images and text, the work is a tone poem reflection and meditation on the after-effects of breast cancer; self-image and sexuality as a remembrance of sensations and events ever-present.

2022    Paris Women Festival (awards film festival) Awarded: Semi-Finalist. Genre: Experimental

2022    Official Selection: Directors Circle of Shorts (under title: Kissed Away. The Empty Room (territories 2))

A Beautiful Tango: When you Tango it's the space around you that matters.(video installation; (photography, prose, and digital films)

2021 Digital Fringe Festival, Gates-Abegglen Theatre Lobby, Theatre Department, CCA Miami University, Oxford, OH. Thursday, November 18 - Sunday, November 21, 2021

A Beautiful Tango concerns boundaries, borders, walls constructed and destructed, and their consequences.

Gates-Abegglen Theatre Lobby, Installation: Two film screens (screen a and b); rear-view mirrors; at the end of the two screen videos, a projection video and audio- "Stateless" is projected over participants.

And That’s As Far As the Story Goes (video installation; soundscape installation with narratives from members of the Myaamia People, Oxford, Ohio)

2019 Artecha Event, Miami University, May 3-5. Art and Technology event, College of Creative Arts, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio

The title, And That’s As Far As the Story Goes, is the refrain of a text by Myaamia storyteller Elizabeth Kiisikohkwa Valley (1813-1899). The spoken words of Myaamia cultural narratives and current Myaamia students (Miami University) share their experiences. These stories are integral to community, gathering, and shape personal reflections of belonging.

The soundscape is noticeably audible or quietly present throughout the landscape. The work is not a literal interpretation of the Myaamia presence but understood through inference.

The work, as presented, interprets a people negotiating displacement, assimilation, and nonconformity with historic contexts and contemporary events. Video presents early process work, audio heard in the landscape from amplifiers buried in the ground or hidden in the landscape, and three video monitors placed within the large space of Miami University Wertz Architecture and Art Library. The monitors are placed at the library windows facing outward. The three video narratives/screens are presented here.