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Shannon Collis and Liz Donadio

Animation / Video / Film, Multimedia, Photography, Sculpture / Installation, Visual / Media

Awards Received

Independent Artist

2021

About the Artist

Baltimore-based artists Shannon Collis and Liz Donadio combine their backgrounds in photography, digital video, and sound installation to create works that explore public spaces, uncovering details of their past, present, and possible futures. Collaborating since 2016, their work has been exhibited locally and regionally in museums and galleries such as Arlington Arts Center, Current Space, the Institute of Contemporary Art Baltimore, InLight Richmond, and the Walters Art Museum. Their print series Concrete/Complex is in the collection of the Albin O. Kuhn Library Special Collections at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, MD as well as in the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore, MD. Collis and Donadio’s installation Singular Space was named one of the top 10 Best Baltimore Art Exhibitions of 2019 in Bmore Art magazine. Shannon Collis is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art at the University of Maryland, College Park. She earned an MFA from the University of Alberta and has completed graduate research at Concordia University in Montreal in the area of Digital Media and Computation Arts. Liz Donadio holds an MFA from Towson University and a BFA from SUNY Purchase. She is an Assistant Professor of Photography + Media at Northern Virginia Community College, Woodbridge, VA.

Shannon Collis and Liz Donadio website View website

Artist's Statement

Shannon Collis and Liz Donadio's immersive installations conjure meditations on the essence of urban landmarks and monuments, addressing contemporary issues surrounding the access to and use of these sites. Their work captures the essence and physicality of municipal art, viewed through an abstract lens to challenge perceptions of the built environment. Recent subjects have been the Brutalist-inspired structures McKeldin Fountain (now demolished) and Forum Fountain (not in operation), both in Baltimore city, as well as a detailed study of the inner workings of the Walters Art Museum building. 

Featured Work

Photos

By challenging perceptions of the built environment, Singular Space captures the essence and physicality of municipal art, viewed through an abstract lens and connected to the urban landscape. Collis and Donadio created a multi-faceted portrait of Forum Fountain, a Brutalist-inspired public sculpture located behind Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in East Baltimore. The culminating installation expands the life of Forum Fountain and features immersive video projection and sound. Architecture can be an extension of the physical self: Buildings tell us about our bodies, both personal and social, and structure our experiences and behaviors. Singular Space serves as a multi-sensory palimpsest, reminding us that public space is mutable and cannot be erased- even in the face of continual destruction or neglect.
Dismantled in late 2016, McKeldin Fountain was part of Baltimore's urban landscape for over three decades. An unembellished Brutalist structure, it was poetically designed to evoke natural rock formations of the Susquehanna River, fusing natural ecology and modern design into the heart of downtown. A designated free-speech zone, McKeldin was home to Occupy Baltimore in 2011 and Black Lives Matter protests in 2015. As a collaborative audio-visual project, Collis and Donadio documented the fountain's last days to conjure a meditation on the essence of this urban landmark. Using projection-mapping software, video shot on-site traverses large sculptural forms that reference shapes of the fountain itself, culminating in a sensory memorial experience.
Sounding Place is a live performance that combines recorded audio and visual elements and merges them with the existing architecture of the Walters Art Museum and its vast collection. By engaging visitors in unexpected places, Sounding Place brings attention to the hidden characteristics of the museum and reintroduces these findings back into the existing site. Collis and Donadio connect with the Walters as an emergent performative space, seeing the museum as a living, breathing entity that harbors sonic and visual complexities beyond the works formally on display.

Videos

  • C O N C R E T E / C O M P L E X at Current Space (installation view)

    See more information about C O N C R E T E / C O M P L E X at Current Space (installation view)
    Dismantled in late 2016, McKeldin Fountain was part of Baltimore's urban landscape for over three decades. An unembellished Brutalist structure, it was poetically designed to evoke natural rock formations of the Susquehanna River, fusing natural ecology and modern design into the heart of downtown. A designated free-speech zone, McKeldin was home to Occupy Baltimore in 2011 and Black Lives Matter protests in 2015.

    As a collaborative audio-visual project, Collis and Donadio documented the fountain's last days to conjure a meditation on the essence of this urban landmark. Using projection-mapping software, video shot on-site traverses large sculptural forms that reference shapes of the fountain itself, culminating in a sensory memorial experience.
    Medium: Digital video projection-mapped onto various sized sculptural forms.
    Year: 2017

  • Singular Space at ICA Baltimore (installation view)

    See more information about Singular Space at ICA Baltimore (installation view)
    Collis and Donadio have created a multi-faceted portrait of Forum Fountain, a Brutalist-inspired public sculpture located behind Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in East Baltimore. The culminating installation expands the life of Forum Fountain and features immersive video projection and sound. Architecture can be an extension of the physical self: Buildings tell us about our bodies, both personal and social, and structure our experiences and behaviors. Singular Space serves as a multi-sensory palimpsest, reminding us that public space is mutable and cannot be erased- even in the face of continual destruction or neglect.
    Medium: Digital video projection-mapped onto various sized sculptural forms. 5.1 Surround sound.
    Year: 2019