Shonee (born Bianca Shonee Arroyo-Kreimes) is a Canadian-Costa Rican digital media artist who sees the immersive potential of video and speculative fiction to depict artificial life environments. Growing up on the edge of a jungle has fueled her practice, as she now strives to reestablish nature’s place in her life now as an urbanite in Montréal. Her work wields technology as a contrasting metaphor to pin biological and technological life forms against one another, since she perceives our hesitancy to accept emerging technological life as similar to our unconscious desire to separate from the already-present other in our lives: nature. In the virtual worlds she creates, surreal creatures borrow shapes, colours, and stories from the natural world, while remaining singular. This choice is intended to inspire a newly discovered appreciation of the endangered, non-human world we too often take for grantedas her portrayals try to embody humankind’s seemingly objective and narrow misunderstanding of the lives of plants and animals in this time of ecological crisis. She holds a BFA in Film Animation from Concordia University where she is currently an MFA candidate in Intermedia.
·COMMISSIONED VIRTUAL REALITY / GAMES Animation / Oceanarium (dir. Paloma Dawkins) - Canada Council for the Arts, T.B.ATextures / I Am The Blues (VR version, dir. Daniel Cross) - Eye Steel Film, 2019 Textures / Dream (dir. Philippe Lambert) - National Film Board of Canada, 2018
·INSTALLATIONS Animation / L’Exil Vaut Le Voyage (dir. Félix Dagenais ) - National Film Board of Canada, Quartier des Spectacles , 2020
·FEATURES / SHORTS Animation / Art Direction / Dope Is Death (dir. Mia Donovan) - Eye Steel Film, 2019 Storyboard / Rufus Wainwright - Trouble In Paradise (Official Music Video) (dir. Mia Donovan) - 2019
·EXHIBITIONS Cuccr Residency Exhibition / Group Exhibition / Vav Gallery / Montreal, QC 2018 Then, Now, Next: Society For Animation Studies / Group Exhibition / Montreal, QC 2018
·SCREENINGS 11th International Inter University Short Film Festival, Dhaka, Bangladash (07/29/2019) Giraf 15 / Possible Worlds Short Pack, Calgary, Canada (09/22/2019) Sistership TV / Episode: Blob Descending a Staircase, Ottawa, Canada (8/18/2019) Cold Call Film Festival, Montreal, Canada (02/09/2017) Concordia Film Festival, Montreal, Canada (05/02/2018) Vid & Sound Bime Pro, Bilbao, Spain (10/24/2018) FASA Film Nights, Montreal, Canada (09/18/2018) FliQs Film Night, Montreal, Canada (04/02/2019)
