Mariah Garnett

Assistant Professor

Websites:

https://www.mariahgarnett.com
https://commonwealthandcouncil.com/us/mariah-garnett

Biography:

Mariah Garnett is a filmmaker and artist who mixes documentary, narrative and experimental filmmaking practices to make work that accesses existing people and communities beyond her immediate experience. Using source material that ranges from found text to her own father, Garnett often inserts herself into the films, creating cinematic allegories that codify and locate identity. Her films deconstruct the conventional hierarchy between filmmaker and subject, a mode that has historically been the purview of directors who possess economic, racial and gender privilege. By including her own image, Garnett positions queerness in relationship to subject matter that on the surface may seem disconnected from LGBT identity. The works simultaneously acknowledge a natural human desire for contact with others, and the legacies of abuse and "othering" that have surrounded the mediation of that desire through history. She holds an MFA from Calarts in Film/Video and a BA from Brown University in American Civilization. She is a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow and has received awards from the Rema Hort Mann Foundation (2015), California Community Fund (2014) and Artadia Los Angeles (2016). Recent solo shows include Contemporary Art Museum, Houston (TX), Commonwealth + Council (LA) and a 10 year survey at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery. Her work has screened and exhibited internationally at venues including The New Museum, The Hammer Museum, REDCAT, TULCA, Sundance Film Festival, NY Film Festival, CPH:DOX and Hot Docs. Her work has been featured in Artforum, Bomb Magazine, Hyperallergic, Frieze, Reverse/Shot, Vulture, and The New York Times. She lives and works in Los Angeles.