“Then I thought: it would be amazing if you came to a gallery and left as a different person.” Rather than just showing a piece, what can it do?” she says. “We were talking about the ways we could use a space to do something more. The idea came to her after a conversation with a curator about the usefulness of art galleries. The Rebirthing Room is the latest of Brathwaite-Shirley’s participatory works.
“It’s all based on things that I’m trying to overcome or have overcome. “It’s supposed to be super hard!” laughs Brathwaite-Shirley.
I grapple with the game but, by my fourth round, I’m still no good synthetic screams echo around the empty gallery. It’s also the centrepiece of her first institutional solo show, which takes on the theme of transformation. 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 a quiet morning at London gallery Studio Voltaire and Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley is challenging me to a trial run of her latest artwork.