Gherdai Hassell is a multidisciplinary contemporary artist , whose work is developed through a process of auto – ethnography connecting her own experience and academic research to larger, cultural, historical, political meanings and understandings. Inspired by childhood imaginings, her work investigates memory and nostalgia to create unexpected narratives surrounding identity. Drawing on an Afro futurist perspective, Her work typically centers the Black female body, simultaneously existing within realms of past, present, and future. Diasporic pasts become re-informed by Black futures, where the resulting present is experienced as a living “Artiffacts” and “Alibii”. Her work is an exploration of identity as an exploration of materials, and social practice. The work suggests that identity should be self-determined and understood, and contextualized through connection with others. Her multimedia work reimagines relationships with the body as avatar, social space and the invisible world. She graduated from the university of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2013. Originally from Bermuda, she now lives and works between Manchester, UK and Hangzhou China. Her artwork is on permanent display in the Government Administration Building, Hamilton, Bermuda. She has consecutively showcased and auctioned her work in Tina Lawson’s Annual Wearable Art Gala, Los Angeles, CA. She has presented her work in solo and group exhibitions in Bermuda, USA and China. She is among various artists from Bermuda to participate in the Bermuda Biennial 2020, Let Me Tell You Something, inspired by American author and Pulitzer Prize winner, Toni Morrison sponsored by Bacardi Ltd.. She is the host of The art Affects Podcast, which celebrates and amplifies the voices of artists of the African Diaspora. Gherdai is currently an MFA candidate at the China Academy of Art.