Sierra Diamond

 I moved to Germany in 2018, the first time I ever moved somewhere completely alone. That first year was an important time for self-reflection about who I am, who I was and who I wanted to become. In this period of self-reflection, I began The Watcher, a series of 10 minute vlogs inspired by Lynn Hershman Leeson and Christian Marclay’s The Clock. The goal of the series is to have a 10-minute video recorded for every day of the year, with the years that the videos were recorded in intermixed.

I watch the vlogs for the first time at least a year later, and many of the videos go on to become independent works. I often find it challenging to watch the vlogs and difficult to record them, knowing I will one day watch them. This project can be seen as a study in giving myself grace, appreciating where I have been, and learning to laugh at situations I wasn’t able to laugh at when they happened.

Included in this series are other vlog-like works, all recorded in 2018 during the Period of Great Reflection.

02.06.18 at 00.18.mov began as an original vlog from 2018, rewatched in 2023. The transcript of the video was turned into a Lückentext (or ‘Mad-Lib’ as I know from childhood), and visitors to the 2024 Rundgang at Künstakademie Münster were invited to fill in the blanks.

WANT TO PARTICIPATE? : Fill in a digital Lückentext here.

As part of the Telepresence Toolbox program in 2024, “Wired”, the scripts from visitors of the Rundgang were performed and broadcasted live, featuring myself, Fee Mai and the filled-in words of many anonymous participants.

Not Building A Wall But Making A Brick (2022) is a video installation featuring a 52-minute long vlog from 2018 in which I retell the story of a night when I was impacted by fear, alcoholism and domestic violence. Surrounding the video on a laptop are various archival items: digitally printed items, links to video and music and a book, The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch, opened to a specific page.

I recorded the vlog initially simply as proof for myself that someone I trusted hurt me and that my response and fear were warranted. Though I never intended the video to be work, I began to see importance in this story, in my story, and the idea that I deserved to be taken seriously, by myself, by him and by others, immediately when it happened - that everyone who experiences abuse deserves to be heard and supported.

Due to the sensitive nature of the work, the video and archival items are viewable in a closer form only by request, though I would like to share one link included in the installation - The Beauty of Being a Misfit.