Ellen Donnelly exhibits Call Me Rabbit in Los Angeles

MFA alum Ellen Donnelly (’16) will exhibit Call Me Rabbit, an immersive video installation, at Actual Size in Los Angeles, CA from December 15 to January 19. The New York-based artist’s first solo exhibition uses imagery, audio, and rhetoric from wellness culture, online marketing, and social media to create an anxious but intriguing landscape to consider our place as individuals and the way we define ourselves as such.

Donnelly credits the MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics program for building her confidence. "My project Call Me Rabbit started as 15 pages of dialogue written in a voice that I honed and felt free and comfortable in through writing my MFA thesis. Over this year I’ve grown the project and brought more artists (a cast and crew of 12!) and processes into its universe, trusting that with a solid foundation of words it would become something that people could relate to. So many of the things I’ve done to keep myself going, to have the confidence to bring something to life, I learned at UWB. The major lesson I learned in the program, by studying experimental writers and theorists under such brilliant, nurturing faculty and visiting professors, is to do WHATEVER you want. Just keep doing it. Do it all the way. Do it well. And do it for yourself. I now have a process that I’m thrilled by every step of the way. " To see snippets of Call Me Rabbit and other projects, check out Donnelly's Instagram.