Just Come/Been To
Shirley Bruno explores the philosophies, aesthetics, and rhythms of lived moments found distinctively in the Caribbean, particularly as they pertain to the lives of women.
Artist BioJust Come/Been To is an experimental triptych film delving into the lives of three women, their inherited land conflicts and buried family legacies in Haiti. A mosaic tapestry of parallel storylines allow for in-between gaps in times where the ancestral, mythological, and physical worlds converge as the film reflects on one’s spiritual connection to a land, its primitive memories, and the Caribbean dilemma of exodus and return.
Shirley Bruno
Brooklyn, NY
Shirley Bruno explores the philosophies, aesthetics, and rhythms of lived moments found distinctively in the Caribbean, particularly as they pertain to the lives of women. Drawing from her Haitian heritage, preserving and radicalizing ancestral traditions and mythologies, she creates and reimagines modern myths that expose the impermanence between the material and spiritual, documentary and fiction, and collective memory and history. Her films are highly participatory in approach and take their point of departure from neglected histories as well as from rumors, dreams, superstitious beliefs, memories both real and imagined. Her films are included in the permanent collections of CNAP in France and Vidéographe in Montréal, and her works have been presented at Palais de Tokyo, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Villa Médici Rome among others. She is a NYC Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, and holds master’s degrees from London Film School as well as Le Fresnoy—Studio National des Arts Contemporains, where she was also an artist-fellow.