Mariah Garnett

Mariah Garnett 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 are economically, racially and gender privileged. 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. In this way, Garnett creates a space in her films where more than one thing can be true.

She holds an MFA from Calarts in Film/Video and a BA from Brown University in American Civilization. She has received awards from the Rema Hort Mann Foundation (2015), California Community Fund (2014) and Artadia Los Angeles (2016). She has had solo shows at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Metropolitan Arts Center (Tate Network, Belfast, UK), ltd los angeles, and Louis B James (New York), and her work has screened and exhibited internationally at venues including The New Museum, SF MoMA, REDCAT, and the 2014 Made in LA Hammer Biennial. Her work has been featured in Bomb Magazine, Artforum, and the New York Times and she has held adjunct appointments at Cal State Bakersfield and UCLA. She lives and works in Los Angeles.