Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic \u201cAmerica has been the only place where some text in my work was censored,\u201d says Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley. A video game that the 29-year-old British artist had made about walking home alone at night had been on view in the US. Accompanying wall text featured the phrase \u201cyour state has failed you\u201d. But the gallery \u201csaid that using the word \u2018state\u2019 was too political\u201d.The gallery also restricted children from accessing the piece. \u201cBecause I was trans, parents had to opt in to allow the kids to see my work,\u201d she says. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t a violent game. It wasn\u2019t about trans-ness as a whole \u2014 that wasn\u2019t the main focus. It [was] about getting home safe. But America was the only place where kids weren\u2019t allowed in.\u201dExperiences like this underpin the artist\u2019s video installations and immersive games \u2014 which have been shown at MoMA, Berlin\u2019s Berghain and Tate Modern \u2014 about preserving the people omitted from history, with a focus on Black trans lives. Over a video call, Brathwaite-Shirley lists eclectic influences that range from artists such as Sondra Perry and Travis Alabanza to the video game studio Puppet Combo and Metal Gear Solid designer Hideo Kojima. Haunted PS1, a community of developers who create low-res horror games, is \u201can extreme inspiration\u201d.Her games may be visual labyrinths full of eerily striking visual references. But they are more than that. Take Black Trans Archive (2020), in which the player is first questioned about their identity \u2014 whether they are \u201cBlack and trans\u201d, \u201ctrans\u201d or \u201ccis\u201d \u2014 determining their path through the virtual space.I want to activate people\u2019s brains and allow them to have conversations with people that they don\u2019t likeThe work will be on view at Frieze New York in a solo booth presented by London\u2019s Public Gallery, alongside other games and drawings. \u201cWe\u2019re showing BlackTransSea (2021),\u201d\u00a0says Brathwaite-Shirley. \u201cYou go on the journey of your ancestors \u2014 whether they were taken across the ocean, or they travel to take other people across the ocean. If your ancestors are people that carry people across the ocean, that ship can never make it to its destination. It always sinks.\u201dThen there\u2019s the most intense game the artist has ever made \u2014 No space for redemption (2024). It\u2019s about war, sport, the police, border security, love and interrogating family members. \u201cIt\u2019s also about people online who cause trauma to other people and use that trauma as content for themselves.\u201d\u00a0Each section is inspired by conversations, dreams and experiences Brathwaite-Shirley has had. \u201cThis particular piece is very diaristic.\u201d The artist will not be travelling to the US, where President Trump\u2019s executive orders have targeted trans people\u2019s rights. \u201cI\u2019m sad I\u2019m not going,\u201d Brathwaite-Shirley says. \u201cIt\u2019s too scary to travel.\u201dThe idea behind each artwork typically begins with a conversation. \u201cMy job is to just listen and collect snippets of what they\u2019re saying. Images that are important to them or are of them. Once I have everything, we use those images to craft the foundation of the environment,\u201d says Brathwaite-Shirley. \u201cWe\u201d is a group of Black trans coders and developers. Using software such as Blender and Gimp, they can create anything from a figure to a landscape to an object within 15 minutes.\u00a0However, there\u2019s a rule \u2014 once it\u2019s been created, it can\u2019t be deleted. No matter if it\u2019s terrible, or spelled incorrectly, it all must go into the piece.\u00a0\u201cInitially, when I started, I wanted the work to be an archive,\u201d the artist explains. \u201cI would start by taking photos of Black trans people and putting them in the game. [But] I found that when I would make something and delete it, I felt like I was also curating what I thought was appropriate to archive about the person. I was almost doing some of the similar erasure that I think archives do. This way, even if you don\u2019t see it, it\u2019s underneath. It\u2019s there in some way.\u201dBrathwaite-Shirley was born in 1995 and raised in Streatham, south London. \u201cMy grandma was a Seventh-Day Adventist, so we\u2019d go to a Seventh-Day Adventist church. A very happy-clappy, \u2018I\u2019m possessed on the weekend\u2019 church,\u201d the artist laughs. Growing up, Brathwaite-Shirley became increasingly fascinated with video games. \u201cI would dream in Doom graphics, but imagine my family in there.\u201d A timid and artsy child, interested in how things were constructed, Brathwaite-Shirley was \u201ca big nerd at heart\u201d.\u00a0After studying at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, Berlin beckoned. \u201cI think the pace of life in London is really fast. In Berlin, I live by a lake very far out of the city and it lets me just spend all this time thinking.\u201dHer early works were long animations with complex storylines. One of them was called Blackzilla (2018). It was about an AI that comes back to Earth after a long time away and decides to make an atmosphere that is only breathable for Black trans people. \u201c[It was] entertaining, but for messaging, ineffective.\u201dIn recent works, the artist says, \u201cI want to activate people\u2019s brains and allow them to have conversations with people that they don\u2019t like. With people that they don\u2019t care about. With people that they think they have nothing in common with.\u201dBrathwaite-Shirley doesn\u2019t expect the audience to arrive with fully formed ideas but rather to be open to new thoughts. \u201cWe\u2019ve lost, especially in London, a lot of community centres. It feels very difficult to go to a physical space where you can muddle through a topic you don\u2019t fully understand. It feels like you must be an expert in order to talk about the topic. And if you don\u2019t, the consequences can be quite dire.\u201dA participatory performance at Tate Modern last year \u201cended up as this [big] conversation that wouldn\u2019t stop. We went well over time. People just talked and talked and talked and talked.\u201d It was proof, the artist concluded, of the importance of offline encounters.For an exhibition at the Serpentine in the autumn, the artist is creating a work in which the only function is to encourage participants to talk to each other. \u201cThe game controls all the lights in space. It controls the environment as well as conversation topics. It\u2019s a game that is not just purely linked to playing [but] gets you to look away from the screen and into someone\u2019s eyes.\u201d\u00a0The heart of Brathwaite-Shirley\u2019s art lies in what happens to the player \u2014 especially once the game ends. It\u2019s \u201cwhat you leave with, rather than what you\u2019re seeing,\u201d the artist says. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t want someone to leave saying that the artwork is beautiful, even if it is. I would much rather them say \u2018I felt\u2019 or \u2018I didn\u2019t like\u2019 or \u2018I have to think about X\u2019.\u201dMay 7-11, frieze.comFind out about our latest stories first \u2014 follow FT Weekend on Instagram and X, and sign up to receive the FT Weekend newsletter every Saturday morning<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic \u201cAmerica has been the only place where some text in my work was censored,\u201d says Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley. A video game that the 29-year-old British artist had made about walking home alone at night had been on view in the US. Accompanying wall text featured<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":298230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-298229","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298229"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":298231,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298229\/revisions\/298231"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}