Work samples

  • Singular Space
    Singular Space
    Singular Space - Installation view, 5-channel digital video projection, 5.1 Surround sound. ICA Gallery, 2019
  • Singular Space at ICA Baltimore, 2019
    Singular Space - 5-channel digital video projection, 5.1 Surround sound. ICA Gallery, 2019
  • Concrete / Complex
    Concrete / Complex
    Concrete / Complex - Installation view, 5-channel digital video projection, quadraphonic sound. Current Space, Baltimore, 2017
  • Sounding Place
    Sounding Place
    Sounding Place - Installation view, 4-channel digital video projection, quadraphonic sound. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, 2019

About Collis Donadio

Baltimore City
Baltimore-based artists Shannon Collis and Liz Donadio combine their backgrounds in photography, digital video and sound installation to create works that explore public spaces, uncovering details of their past, present and possible futures. Their immersive installations conjure meditations on the essence of urban landmarks and monuments. 

Previous collaborations have been exhibited and screened at… more
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Singular Space

By challenging perceptions of the built environment, Singular Space captures the essence and physicality of municipal art, viewed through an abstract lens and connected to the urban landscape. Collis and Donadio created a multi-faceted portrait of Forum Fountain, a Brutalist-inspired public sculpture located behind Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in East Baltimore.

Completed over the course of a year, their documentation of Forum Fountain utilized digital video, drone cinematography, photography, and audio recording to produce a dimensional and meditative impression of the site and its surroundings. The culminating installation expands the life of Forum Fountain and features immersive video projection and a permeating soundscape, reflecting the undulating nature of urban life.

Architecture can be an extension of the physical self: Buildings tell us about our bodies, both personal and social, and structure our experiences and behaviors. Singular Space serves as a multi-sensory palimpsest, reminding us that public space is mutable and cannot be erased- even in the face of continual destruction or neglect.

"
As the pristine geometric edges of the projected video refract and roll at a soothing pace, blending between moving and still images, sharp angles, marble slabs, and gritty textures dance across the walls. A slow thrum pulses against your eardrums, enveloping you in a soothing bath of sound." - Cara Ober, Bmore Art Magazine, January 21, 2019
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On view: ICA Baltimore, January 5-26, 2019 Arlington Art Center, September 21-December 22, 2019
  • Singular Space
    Singular Space
    Installation view, 5-channel digital video projection, 5.1 Surround sound. ICA Gallery, 2019
  • Singular Space
    Singular Space
    Installation view, 5-channel digital video projection, 5.1 Surround sound. ICA Gallery, 2019
  • Singular Space
    Singular Space
    Installation view, 5-channel digital video projection, 5.1 Surround sound. ICA Gallery, 2019
  • Singular Space
    Singular Space
    Installation view, 5-channel digital video projection, 5.1 Surround sound. ICA Gallery, 2019
  • Singular Space
    Singular Space
    Installation view, 5-channel digital video projection, 5.1 Surround sound. ICA Gallery, 2019
  • Singular Space
    Singular Space
    Installation view, 5-channel digital video projection, 5.1 Surround sound. ICA Gallery, 2019
  • Singular Space at ICA Baltimore, 2019
    Singular Space - 5-channel digital video projection, 5.1 Surround sound. ICA Gallery, 2019

Sounding Place

Sounding Place is a live performance that combines recorded audio and visual elements and merges them with the existing architecture of the Walters Art Museum and its vast collection. By engaging visitors in unexpected places, Sounding Place brings attention to the hidden characteristics of the museum and reintroduces these findings back into the existing site. Collis and Donadio engaged with the Walters as an emergent performative space, seeing the museum as a living, breathing entity that harbors sonic and visual complexities beyond the works formally on display. 
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On view: The Walters Art Museum, June 27, 2019
  • Sounding Place
    Sounding Place
    Installation view, 4-channel digital video projection, quadraphonic sound. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, 2019
  • Sounding Place
    Sounding Place
    Installation view, 4-channel digital video projection, quadraphonic sound. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, 2019
  • Sounding Place
    Sounding Place
    Installation view, 4-channel digital video projection, quadraphonic sound. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, 2019
  • Sounding Place
    Sounding Place
    Installation view, 4-channel digital video projection, quadraphonic sound. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, 2019
  • Sounding Place
    Sounding Place
    Video Still, 4-channel digital video projection, quadraphonic sound. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, 2019
  • Sounding Place
    Sounding Place
    Video Still, 4-channel digital video projection, quadraphonic sound. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, 2019
  • Sounding Place
    Sounding Place
    Video Still, 4-channel digital video projection, quadraphonic sound. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, 2019
  • Sounding Place
    Sounding Place
    Video Still, 4-channel digital video projection, quadraphonic sound. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, 2019
  • Sounding Place
    Sounding Place
    Installation view, 4-channel digital video projection, quadraphonic sound. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, 2019

Concrete / Complex

Dismantled in late 2016, McKeldin Fountain was part of Baltimore's urban landscape for over three decades. An unembellished Brutalist structure, it was poetically designed to evoke natural rock formations of the Susquehanna River, fusing natural ecology and modern design into the heart of downtown. A designated free-speech zone, McKeldin was home to Occupy Baltimore in 2011 and Black Lives Matter protests in 2015.

As a collaborative audio-visual project, Collis and Donadio documented the fountain's last days to conjure a meditation on the essence of this urban landmark. Using projection-mapping software, video shot on-site traverses large sculptural forms that reference shapes of the fountain itself, culminating in a sensory memorial experience. Concrete / Complex is an artists’ tribute to McKeldin Fountain, to its design, history, and life in Baltimore.
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On view: Current Space, August 12 - September 3, 2017 -  InLight Richmond, November 3rd, 2017 -  Light City Baltimore, April 14 - 21, 2018 - 
  • Concrete / Complex
    Concrete / Complex
    Installation view, 5-channel digital video projection, quadraphonic sound. Current Space, Baltimore, 2017
  • Concrete / Complex
    Concrete / Complex
    Installation view, 5-channel digital video projection, quadraphonic sound. Current Space, Baltimore, 2017
  • Concrete / Complex
    Concrete / Complex
    Installation view, 5-channel digital video projection, quadraphonic sound. Current Space, Baltimore, 2017
  • Concrete / Complex
    Concrete / Complex
    Installation view, 5-channel digital video projection, quadraphonic sound. Current Space, Baltimore, 2017
  • Concrete / Complex
    Concrete / Complex
    Installation view, 5-channel digital video projection, quadraphonic sound. InLight Richmond, 2017
  • Concrete / Complex
    Concrete / Complex
    Installation view, 5-channel digital video projection, quadraphonic sound. InLight Richmond, 2017
  • C O N C R E T E / C O M P L E X installation view at Current Space, 2017
    Installation view, 5-channel digital video projection, quadraphonic sound. Current Space, Baltimore, 2017

McKeldin Fountain

A series of photographs taken in the weeks between the announcement for McKeldin Fountain's removal and its eventual demolition. The images inspired and informed the artist's creation of Concrete / Complex as an immersive installation. Existing as some of the last photographs of McKeldin, they are a visual elegy to its mark on Baltimore.
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In the collection of Albin O. Kuhn Library Special Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, MD
  • McKeldin Fountain I
    McKeldin Fountain I
    Archival pigment print, 22x28", 2017
  • McKeldin Fountain II
    McKeldin Fountain II
    Archival pigment print, 22x28", 2017
  • McKeldin Fountain III
    McKeldin Fountain III
    Archival pigment print, 22x28", 2017
  • McKeldin Fountain IV
    McKeldin Fountain IV
    Archival pigment print, 22x28", 2017
  • McKeldin Fountain V
    McKeldin Fountain V
    Archival pigment print, 22x28", 2017
  • McKeldin Fountain VI
    McKeldin Fountain VI
    Archival pigment print, 22x28", 2017