It’s a quiet morning at London gallery Studio Voltaire and Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley is challenging me to a trial run of her latest artwork. It’s a horror-inspired video game in which players fight to overcome the problems that are holding them back, from fear of failure to addiction. It’s also the centrepiece of her first institutional solo show, which takes on the theme of transformation. I grapple with the game but, by my fourth round, I’m still no good; synthetic screams echo around the empty gallery. “It’s supposed to be super hard!” laughs Brathwaite-Shirley. “It’s all based on things that I’m trying to overcome or have overcome. It didn’t take one turn, it took many.”
The Rebirthing Room is the latest of Brathwaite-Shirley’s participatory works. The idea came to her after a conversation with a curator about the usefulness of art galleries. “We were talking about the ways we could use a space to do something more. Rather than just showing a piece, what can it do?” she says. “Then I thought: it would be amazing if you came to a gallery and left as a different person.”
