MARIANA SHEPPARD
Someplace Else. 2023, Video installation with sound, projection on canvas. Running time: 2 minutes, looped.
Creatively interprets the experience of G’yanni:
Interviewer: “How young were you when you first came into contact with the justice system?”
G’yanni: “Since I was one.” …
G’yanni’s Mother: “We would take her to the prisons to visit, have picnics. We have pictures.” …
Interviewer: “Which one stands out, the visits with your dad?”
G’yanni: “The time my mama cooked...and he told you it was nasty. [laughter] …First visit we were able to bring food, I think.”
Someplace Else is a multimedia installation that explores themes of escapism, imagination, and self-representation. Inspired by prison visiting room backdrops of idealized landscapes such as tropical beaches, mountain views, and cityscapes, this work interrogates how portraiture offers an escape from the culture of confinement. The act of standing inside a prison while in front of a picturesque locale is a unique duality of being both here and there. Therein lies the struggle and freedom of living in one’s reality and engaging in one’s possibility simultaneously. As the inmates and their visitors pose for photos in front of these backdrops, they pretend, for just a moment, that they are elsewhere.
My conversations with G’yanni made it increasingly clear that her future is grounded in possibility. She expressed the desire to move away from New Orleans and live in a big city like Los Angeles or New York. She wants to become a nurse, pediatrician, actress, and/or dancer. G’yanni, at 13, despite being so intimately impacted by the criminal justice system, has permitted herself to dream of a world outside of her immediate circumstances.
Mariana Sheppard (b. 1985, Houma, LA; based in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, LA) is a documentary and conceptual photographer. Inspired by Black culture and portraiture, she uses the camera to create pathways to understanding and compassion. Sheppard has served as a community-engaged arts educator, and her photographs have also appeared in films such as Sister Hearts (2017, directed by Mohammad Gorjestani) about Maryam Henderson-Uloho, and Intersection (2017, directed by Angela Tucker). Sheppard’s work has been exhibited at the McKenna Museum of African American Art, Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, and the Stella Jones Gallery, among other cultural spaces. Her practice was recognized in 2019 with an artist residency at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Sheppard holds a BA from Louisiana State University and an MA from Columbia University. A 2017 Salzburg Global Fellow, she is presently the Managing Director at Junebug Productions.
