Daniela Yohannes
Directing
Biography
Daniela Yohannes is an interdisciplinary artist. Her work reflects upon the racialised movement and conditional belonging of African diaspora, using her own Ethiopian-Eritrean heritage as a lens. Through abstract portraiture and storytelling across multiple media, Yohannes explores the overlap of individual and collective subconscious and desire, and the destruction caused by displacement. Her work dwells on alternative Black realities, considering the bonds between herself, her family and other communities through magical symbolism.
Known For
Part of the Atopias trilogy. A meditative walk across terrains, where a protagonist traverses atopic spaces thriving only at a level of foundational life; gaseous stars, dense plants, glittering rocks and uncontrolled water. Its nonlinear narrative examines how the conscious absorbs and processes hostilities of society and environment into the unconscious.
Atopias: I Have Left that Dark Cave Forever, My Body has Blended with Hers
The Homeless Wanderer is the second part of Daniela Yohannes’ Atopias trilogy, which grapples with geographies of migration, generational memory, and trauma. Yohannes does double duty, playing a woman trekking the Caribbean’s harsh natural landscapes in search of a transformational portal.