Episode 4: Abolitionist Sound Project Public Secrets with Sharon Daniel

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In this episode, I invited Professor and media artist Sharon Daniel to talk about her interactive documentary projects. I was really interested in learning more about her project Public Secrets, a web documentary project containing an audio archive that links hundreds of statements made by incarcerated women. This episode discusses the processes and obstacles involved in creating collaborative projects with incarcerated people. The interview is from June 3, 2021.

Sharon Daniel is a Professor of Film & Digital Media at UC Santa Cruz and a digital media artist. Her interactive and participatory documentary artworks address issues of social, racial and environmental injustice, with a particular focus on the prison and criminal legal system. Her work is located at the nexus of art and activism, theory, and practice. Over the course of her career, she has produced two distinct but related forms of internet art – participatory media platforms and interactive new media documentaries. While this work is often expanded into interactive installations, which have been exhibited and published internationally, Daniel’s core practice is the development of innovative online interfaces to databases of original interviews and participant-generated content.

Link to Sharon’s website: www.sharondaniel.net