Thing and Spirit
2023, 02:00, 17” x 14” x 42.5”, continuous loop, no sound, black and white digitized Hi-8 tapes, 3 LED LCD monitors in black wooden boxes
Originally installed at Subtitled NYC.
Adónde irá mi vida / Where will my life go
2023, 10:20, color, sound, archival photographs, archival home videos, Hi8 tapes
Adónde irá mi vida is a two-channel short film exploring the impact of memory, storytelling, and cultural artifacts on shaping personal and collective identities. Drawing from archival material detailing the artist's family history in El Salvador, the film follows the director’s grandmother Anita, as she recounts her journey crossing the border in 1976 and again in 1980 to save 10 more people.
Originally screened at The Jewish Museum, a series of short animations and visual collages played in a continuous loop on the smaller screens located near the elevators on each floor. A variety of mediums overlap in both videos, including archival photos, collages, and Hi8 tapes.
The Solitude of Our Most Whole
2022, 04:07, color, sound, Hi8 film
In this video poem, the director revisits Fire Island and their alma mater with a Sony Handycam in 2022. Surrounded by their art mentors and friends, they discover sometimes they need to go back to realize they’ve moved on.
The video features Dana DeGuilio’s paintings and performances from their opening of Live or Die at The Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery in April 2022.
Variations
2021, 16:09, color, sound, HD video
Variations is the first chapter of Cry with Me, an ongoing film series and installation. The series stars the director’s alter-ego, Griselda, an indignant iconoclast armed with inherited trauma and a vicious sense of humor.
In this genre-fluid fantasy, Griselda reenacts 30 of the director’s eccentric dates with hired actors. As the performances become repetitive and surreal, the audience witnesses the normally guarded Griselda struggle with their deepest darkest secret.
A Shapeshifter with a Heavenly Secret
2021, 13:53, color, sound, 2-channel video, archival Home Video footage
The voice in A Shapeshifter with a Heavenly Secret, emerged alongside my alter-ego as an authentic narrator that explores their lived experience through archival footage. The two-channel video incorporates narrated Home Videos that encounter autobiographical events; my Uncle dying from COVID, my brother abandoning my family, and my father crossing the border.
Why Would Anyone Need to be a Different Person?
2021, 05:05, color, sound, video
Video accompanied by text for MODA Critical Review: Ellipses.
How To
2021, 02:46, color, sound, HD video
Griselda muses over how to make a how to.
Audition #4/39
2020-2021, 03:01, color, sound, HD video
Audition #4/39 is Allan’s Audition for Denisse Griselda’s autofictional film, Cry with Me. Each participant was required to complete a Questionnaire before entering the room for the audition, that was structured as a first date with Griselda. Griselda spent 24 hours over 3 days auditioning 39 actors.
Griselda (Episode 1) - Short Film
2018 - 2020, 22:12, color, sound, animation, HD Video
In this subversive mockumentary, a queer Latine new media performance artist is interviewed by a “woke” magazine editor set on defining her story and the meanings of her art. Griselda, directed by Denisse Griselda Reyes, tackles a host of themes related to identity, aesthetics, and Christian iconography with a multi-disciplinary approach and a scoffing attitude.
Griselda is Denisse Griselda Reyes’ alter-ego.
Griselda (Episode 1) - Trailer
2018 - 2020, 02:00, color, sound, animation, HD video
Trailer for the short film, Griselda (episode 1).
In this subversive mockumentary, a queer Latine new media performance artist is interviewed by a “woke” magazine editor set on defining her story and the meanings of her art. Griselda, directed by Denisse Griselda Reyes, tackles a host of themes related to identity, aesthetics, and Christian iconography with a multi-disciplinary approach and a scoffing attitude.
Griselda is Denisse Griselda Reyes’ alter-ego.
Come Watch Me!
2018, Online Archive, rotoscoping, color sound, 8 HD videos
Online archive and installation at The Institut für Alles Mögliche. The original invitation to the show invited an audience to:
“Come watch a Latina be vulnerable and cry in a public space.”
O Apostrophe!
2017, 03:04, color, sound, HD video
Griselda paints portraits of strangers in Central Park.
Leche
2016, Online Archive, rotoscoping, color sound, 39 HD videos
Leche is an HD online archive of El Santuario Virgen María del Rosario de San Nicolás de los Arroyos and its built-environment.
I was summoned here months earlier by a footnote folded in the back of Marcella Althaus-Reid’s Indecent Theology. The revelation read, “See…the modern case of the woman who claims to have been seeing the Virgin of San Nicolás in Argentina.” This singular line directed my search for the contemporary visionary, Gladys Quiroga de Motta.
Dwelling in the aftermath of my encounter with El Santuario, Leche revealed animation’s potential to bring life to seemingly dense inactive matter.
Acts
2015, 01:04, color, sound, animation, HD Video
Denisse asks 4 men to bathe themselves with a sponge.