Selected Exhibitions, Performances and Screeenings
Days of Ethnographic Film Seminar, Ljubljana, Slovenia
This screening is held on March 3–4, 2026, at the Gosposka Hall of ZM GIAM ZRC SAZU. Organized by the Slovenian Ethnological Society, this festival showcases international and local documentaries focused on visual anthropology, featuring film screenings, discussions, and academic panels.
Drum Speak was screened for the seminar. Drum Speak is an immersive visual essay, centred on the historically little-known process of crafting the Mauritian frame drum called the Ravann. Focusing on the materials, tools and techniques, the film strives to valorize this object of cultural significance, the artisanal methods of its making and the ecology that holds the wisdom to support its production. The film speaks to the innate capabilities of human creativity in finding methods that allow people to persevere and thrive. It was made in collaboration with the local Mauritian development organization, ABAIM.
The Mother And… Project
The Mother and… Project seeks to contribute to the growing body of academic feminist and art-historical discourse and scholarship on the intersection of artistic practice and motherhood. The Mother and… Project encompasses an art exhibition, written essays and audio interviews, and be documented, archived, and shared online. The Mother and… Project demonstrates that artist-mothers are not a monolith, but incorporate a multiplicity of intersectional identities, experiences, and lenses.
This exhibition was held at Leedy-Voulkos Art Center, 2012 Baltimore Ave, Kansas City, on view from September 5th - November 21, 2025 with the panel discussion, A Delicate Balance, on Saturday September 6th, 2025 11am - Noon. The catalogue will be published Spring 2026. My podcast interview was released in September 2025.
I includes works from my Deassimilation Diet and We are of This World series in this exhibition.
This exhibition was supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, Missouri Arts Council and the Kansas City Art Institute.
Pollination visions, Troost Gardens Gallery, Kansas City MO
Dates: June 10-July 1, 2023
Curated by Sally Paul, Pollination Visions represents a meaningful tribute to the legacy of our building, which once functioned as a Botanica. Scheduled for June of 2023, the exhibition aims to explore the enduring nexus between humanity and the natural world through a thematic focus on flowers and pollination. In this compelling showcase of interdisciplinary art, visitors will be treated to a visually arresting array of works, spanning the mediums of photography, drawings, installation, and paintings. By providing a multifaceted lens onto the intricate connections that underpin our relationship with nature, this exhibition offers a potent reminder of our collective responsibility to safeguard the planet's biodiversity and ecological integrity.
A work from the We are of This World series was exhibited.
Walking in the Cosmos – Artists Interpreting Urban Reverence, Voelker Orth Museum, Queens NY
On view October 30 – December 18, 2022
Luchia Meihua Lee, of the Taiwanese American Arts Council, curated this group exhibition, an installment in a series. Urban Reverence, addresses not merely a specific belief or ritual, but extends to the relation between humans and nature or the environment. Lee brings together artists who take land and the environment with its universal resonance and implications biologically, spiritually, and culturally as their subject.
For this exhibition, my video work Rakont Mwa, Rakont Nou, Marclaine Antoine was exhibited.
Urban Reverence - Valerie Goodman Gallery, New York NY & IW Gallery, Brooklyn NY
June -July 2021
The series of Urban Tribes projects attempts to raise the discourse of humanity to concerns with the threat to our land and environment.
For this exhibition, I exhibited four works. At IW Gallery, I showed Drum Speak, Rakont Mwa, Rakont Nou, Marclaine Antoine and a series of images from my Mo Zistwar Morisyen series. At Valerie Goodman Gallery, my book, Mo Moris was on display.
Secret of the Friendly Woods Book Exhibition, Wassaic Project
published 2021
For this limited edition book, I included my work 8 days of Attunement. Throughout the day, I made cyanotype images using the shadows of my houseplants to map the movement of light. This sundial-esque work resulted from my ongoing consideration of life in the Anthropocene.
See more about these works in the Attunement Studies project page.
KCAI Faculty Biennial, Beautiful World(s), H&R Block Artspace. Kansas City, MO
11.19.2021 - 03.05.2022
Beautiful World(s): KCAI Biennial features 49 participating artists and designers who contribute to a community of talent and creativity at KCAI as both faculty and staff. Beautiful World(s) includes full-time and adjunct faculty, and full- and part-time staff with a dedicated studio practice, and it represents an opportunity for members of the KCAI community to acknowledge communal challenges and individual artistic growth during the pandemic and to celebrate and honor a collective perseverance.
For this exhibition, I included an installation of images from Deassimilation Diet.
Charlotte Street Crossroads Artboards, Kansas City, MO
The Crossroads Artboards were launched in Fall 2008 as a partnership between Charlotte Street and Missouri Bank (now BOK Financial), and is currently supported in part by the Crossroads Community Association. The Artboards are exterior, double-sided billboards located at 125 Southwest Boulevard featuring new, commissioned works by Kansas City-area artists approximately every three months.
In 2020, work from my Deassimilation Diet series was selected and exhibited.
Arte Laguna Prize, Venice Arsenale, Venice Italy
Arte Laguna Prize is the contemporary art competition that welcomes and exhibits emerging artists from all over the world. It was born out of the MoCA Association‘s desire to value art in all its forms, and since 2006 it has continued its mission to enhance international artists. Finalists and winners are selected each year by a jury of experts, and the works are exhibited at the Arsenale Nord in Venice for a month.
A work from Deassimilation Diet was selected for the 14th edition of the award and exhibited in Venice in 2021 after Covid restrictions were loosened.
Ethnografilm Paris Film Festival, Paris France.
The Ethnografilm festival is a unique event that celebrates the art of non-fiction film-making and the field of video ethnography as a way of understanding the social world.
In 2019, I exhibited an edit of Drum Speak at the festival.
Lineage & Impact, Haw Contemporary, Kansas City MO
Lineage and Impact: KCAI Faculty Past and Present, March 1- May 4 at Haw Contemporary Stockyards, celebrates seven decades of working artists on the faculty of the Kansas City Art Institute, a community that values making, teaching, and learning art as interdependent, often inextricable practices.
For this exhibition, I exhibited work from the Deassimilation Diet series.
Images Flash, UMKC Gallery of Art, Kansas City, MO
Thursday, January 25 – Saturday, February 24, 2018
Images Flash juxtaposes two artists who consider the experience of war. The work of James H. Rifenbark and Diana Heise provide excellent examples of human expression made tangible through lens-based mediums.
For this two person show, I included Eyeshot, 20-minute visual essay that investigates the nature of fighting in combat as well as two companion pieces, Duration and September-December 1966. Each draw their influence from structural filmmaking to find methods to engage Bill Kayfus’ archive of images and use strategies other than linear narrative to elucidate the power and effect of war.
Oceans: Surface/Below, Oriel Myrddin, Wales
June 2017
In Oceans: Surface/Below, US-based artists Pam Longobardi and Diana Heise employ environmental cartographies to consider the effects of plastic contamination, industrial fishing and habitat degradation within the world’s oceans. Together, these artists focus our attention upon environmental waters through the ethical responses that emerge from art.
This exhibition included images from my Seeded performance and takeaway works from my project Dear Representative, all made under the umbrella of the transnational curatorial project, Ephemeral Coast.
Body-Mind Entente, UMKC Gallery of Art, Kansas City, MO
January 21 – February 26, 2016
Body-Mind Entente features multimedia artworks that explore the relationship between body and mind, perception and cognition, consciousness and spirituality. The exhibition shows that aesthetics play an important role in heightening self-consciousness and triggering reflection on the interdependence between body and mind.
For this exhibition, I made an installation of my work Breath Take.
Edge Effects, La Citadelle, Mauritius
July 2016
Edge Effects is an exhibition event exploring coastal imaginations through the work of international artists. This installment of Ephemeral Coast took place at La Citadelle, a historical building located in Port Louis, Mauritius.
For this exhibition, I premiered my film The Sea We Make.
Seeded performance, Le Morne, Mauritius
July 31, 2016
In correlation with the Ephemeral Coast project, I produced a performance work entitled Seeded. On the coast of Mauritius, I planted 35 mangrove trees as a symbolic act against climate change. Mangroves are known for their high CO2 absorption abilities and symbiotic relationship to coral and juvenile fish.
O Ti Le La La E Ravann, Book Launch and Screening, Mauritius
This work is the first book/DVD project on playing ravann (the Mauritian frame drum) in the manner of Sega Tipik. While exploring the historical, social, emotional and cultural dimension of this main musical instrument, this project includes a series of films that engages the history of the instrument, its global significance and assists those wishing to learn to play.
This project launched in July 2016.
Women to Watch-National Museum of Women in the Arts regional exhibition, hosted by Epsten Gallery, KS
Feb - March 2015
Women to Watch is an exhibition program designed to increase the visibility of, and critical response to, promising women artists who are deserving of national and international attention. Every two to three years, the National Museum of Women in the Arts hosts an exhibition featuring underrepresented and emerging women artists from the states and countries in which the museum has outreach committees.
For this exhibition, I included my video work, Your Father Growing Flowers for Your Mother.
Lame La Kone (The Hand That knows) Bagatelle, Beau Bassin, Mauritius
July 2014
Lame La Kone premiered at the largest cinema in Mauritius, gathering the aging stars of Sega as well as younger audiences to see the making of the drum in this little known traditional manner.
The Center is a Moving Target, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO
April-June 2014
The Center is a Moving Target highlights artists whose evolving practice and works speak to the impact and meaningful shifts in the term “regionalism” in contemporary art. Featuring recent two- and three-dimensional and time-based media works by 12 artists living and working within a 20-mile radius of Kansas City’s Crossroads Arts District (a curator-designated region), the exhibition and its programming will discuss “regionalism.” The goals are to enliven the dialog on what creates a community, region, or arena for artistic invention and action, and to explore the notion that the center of the contemporary art world is a moving target.
For this exhibition I made a unique installation of Visions of Le Morne Inscribed with a takeaway.
Connecting Continents, screening at Cantor Art Center, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA
April 2014
As part of the Connecting Continents Conference at Stanford Univerisity, I screened excerpts of Lame La Kone.
After participating, I was asked to be first author on a collaborative essay with Martin Mhando, Associate Professor at Murdoch University and founder of the Zanzibar International Film Festival. This book was published in July 2018 and received the Society for American Archaeology Book Award, Scholarly Books category in 2019.
Digitalfile, H&R Block Artspace, Kansas City, MO (curated by SPECTRA)
In conjunction with the 2014 Kansas City Flatfile is Digitalfile, a group exhibition of time-based artwork by 19 Kansas City based artists. SPECTRA, a nomadic platform for contemporary time-based artwork, has curated the exhibition to present challenging and prescient time-based artwork reflecting the varied and dynamic practices of Kansas City artists.
For this exhibition, I made an installation of Dir Mwa, Dir Nou, Kalibann/Tell Me, Tell Us, Kalibann.
Île Courts–International Short Film Festival, Mauritius
Since its creation, Île Courts – International Short Film Festival of Mauritius acts as a tool-kit for the development of cinema in Mauritius. Île Courts is meant to be a showcase for a different cinema in Mauritius, and regularly screens movies from all over the world, taking us on a surprising journey into the heart of contemporary cinema.
The organizers approached me to present Rakont Mwa, Rakont Nou, Marclaine Antoine and they screened the work with their mobile cinema unit so that rural community members could see the film.
Mwa, Twa, Nou. Me, You, Us. Mauritius, The Studios Inc, Kansas City, MO
Sept-Oct 2014
Mwa, Twa, Nou, Mauritius is an exhibition of photographic and video works that illuminate Diana Heise’s experience assimilate into the culture of the African isle of Mauritius. This work explores the search for equilibrium between being an outsider while also an invited participant. She has also included works that are collaborations with the local community to valorize forms of culture such as music and oral history. This work gives particular attention to forms that have been discriminated against or are in danger of being lost.
Annual Resident Group Show, The Studios Inc, Kansas City, MO
Dec 2012-Jan 2013
For the annual resident exhibition, I mailed a series of postcards to the gallery, including text and imagery that I was making in Mauritius in the tradition of postal art.
Festival Enn, Institut Français de Maurice, Rose-Hill, Mauritius
To open the largest local music festival in Mauritius, I produced a short film centering Sega star Marclaine Antoine in collaboration entitled Dir Mwa Dir Nou Marclaine Antoine.
Evening of Performance, Institut Français de Maurice, Rose-Hill, Mauritius
July 2012
For this first exhibition of performance art to be held in Mauritius, I produced a live version of my work Dir Mwa Di Nou Kalibann.
Lontan Letan Ravann, ABAIM Center, Beau-Bassin, Mauritius
In Celebration of National Music Day in Mauritius, we compiled the first exhibition of images that would eventually result in the film Lame La Kone.
The Voice that Reaches You IV, Cara and Cabezas Contemporary, Kansas City MO
Nov 2011 - Jan 2012
“The artists were selected for this year’s iteration of The Voice That Reaches You IV for their individual investigations into the changing terms of human interaction and connectivity. The third level of Abraham Maslow’s pyramid of human needs is the need for social interaction and a feeling of belonging. Technological advances in communication have offered social surrogates that promise to satisfy this innate human need, but in turn succeed in creating further divides, alienation, and isolation.” - Paulo Acosta Cabezas, director
For this exhibition, I made an installation with my video work Town Topic.
Take Only What You Can Give, Review Studios, Kansas City, MO
March - May 2011
Take Only What You Can Give was my second solo exhibition by multidisciplinary resident artist Diana Heise at The Studios Inc Exhibition Space. This show includes four new bodies of work from 2010 and 2011, including a series of videos, sculptural installations, photographs and a performance. Each work tackles ideas surrounding violence found in contemporary society, in order to highlight the fragile resilience of life. Through her work, Heise creates a visual language that engages the grotesque and the beautiful to address the effects of fear and domination. Her aim is to encourage catharsis, healing and sensations of freedom.
Annual Resident Group Show, The Studios Inc, Kansas City, MO
Dec 2011-Jan 2012
For this exhibition, I made my first iteration of Breath Take.
Visible Verse Film Festival, Vancouver Canada
September 2011
VISIBLE VERSE was a Videopoetry Festival located in Vancouver, Canada from 1999-2017. I screened my work Commands at the festival in 2011.
Power. Drain - Journal of Contemporary Art and Culture. (curated by Avantika Bawa)
2011
I was invited for this issue of drain magazine to include my video work Duration.
Duration is a single channel digital video and an experiment in database structure that explores the effects of militarism. The piece uses moving images that were photographed on gun missions during the Vietnam War. With inspiration from structuralist film, the images in the video are organized by the length of time that the camera was recording, the moments between on and off. As I was interviewing members of the military, I found that there is a language of nomenclature and equipment terms that were commonly used. To further explore this system, the sound design is a repeated alphabetical list of helicopter names.
D.U.M.B.O. Art Under The Bridge Festival, DUMBO Art Center, Brooklyn, NY
March 2009
As the culmination of my Franklin Furnace Performance Art Grant, I was invited by the D.U.M.B.O. Art Under The Bridge Festival to enact my performance work, Gut 5.
During the Gut5: witness performances, the audiences are given edible 1.5"x1"x1" white chocolate Humvee sculptures to eat with one another and the artist.
New-Three, H&R Block Artspace, Kansas City, MO
Fall 2008
For the new faculty biennial at the Kansas City Art Institute, I made an installation of my earlier performance work, Gut 4.
Gut 4: claim, performed at Desoto Row Art Space, Savannah, GA
May 2008
To produce Gut 4, I worked with Desoto Row Gallery to enact this work in the side street in front of their space. It was also the location of gun violence a few weeks before. I also worked with a local filmmaker to document the work over the course of the 2.5 hour performance.
New York Underground Film Festival, Film Anthology Archives, New York, NY
2007
I was invited to screen Eyeshot at the festival and participate in a Question and Answer session about the piece.