Kiley Brandt

Kiley Brandt (MFA) is a video artist from North Carolina. In her work, Brandt attempts to inspire empathy through sound, poetry and immersive installation to better communicate dissatisfaction with the current political climate and the uncertain displacement many feel within it.

Her research areas include diaspora, adoption, immigration and Mexican/American Border politics. She was a 2019 New Media Caucus: Border Control Presenter in Ann Arbor, Michigan and currently teaches as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Art- Digital Media at Clemson University, SC.

“I spent a lot of time in Iceland just feeling and thinking. At @fishfactory I felt ready to explore without an end goal. I spent my days relearning to use my hands; playing guitar chords and making ceramics even though I have no skill in either. I made linoleum stamps, wrote poetry, made copies and spent many moments by the shore or in the water. In between these moments I felt my larger thoughts about my political pieces shifting and I rediscovered intuitive making in my video practice.

I slowed down and nurtured the need for idle contemplation and experience. What pieces shift back into place when you remember what it is to exist presently in the body? Online slogans, like “cry about it” became premonitions or advice from the landscape. An Icelandic cure for being lost in the woods came to be a call to action in simplicity. One of the most radical things to participate in during times like these is to slow down, feel, and know there are certain truths that cannot be taken from you, like community and freedom…

Ritual, loss, cycles and time became familiar friends in Stödvarfjordur and I was excited to explore texture not just in the physical landscape, but the political one as well.