BREE GANT (they/them)
bree gant (they/them) is an artist and thinker from the west side of Detroit. Passionate about interrogating the social forces that prevent us from understanding how power affects our conception of self, truth, and everyday life, their photography, video, film, dance, installation, and performances employ ritual and gesture to remark on the relationship between the mind, body, and environment.
At the crux of their practice, they are interested in the ways in which history and myth converge. bree works through various media and disciplines to remark on the dissonance between lore and truth or the lack of space between the two. “I often take up aspects of my own life and likeness in my work to alter or meld narratives that I have or could encounter(ed). I like to think of my work as a gumbo of divination, social research, and gossip.”
While a varied-media artist, they use a critical, social practice approach that is process-based and deeply collaborative, often manifesting in photography, video, performance, and installation.
“I am partial to lens media because it is both accessible and serves as a veil between viewer and ritual. I understand art as a form for care and knowledge production, and aspire to platform Black visual grammar and radical queer performance as pathways to liberation.”
ABOUT BREE GANT
bree gant’s work has been exhibited at festivals, museums, and galleries, including Black Star Film Festival, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, San Francisco African American Art and Culture Complex, and Detroit Science Lab Gallery, among many others.
They are the recipient of numerous awards, grants, and residencies, including a John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Arts Grant (2016), a Detroit Narrative Agency Film Fellowship (2017), an Art Matters Fellowship (2019), a Kresge Arts Fellowship (2020), a Red Bull Artist Residency (2021), and a Surf Point Foundation Residency (2022). bree studied film at Howard University. They live in their hometown, Detroit, and is likely somewhere binge-watching early 2000s science fiction.