Kym, a light-skinned femme person with shoulder-length brown/blonde hair, kneels at the side of a coast. Her digital video camera next to her, a crumbling stone structure behind her. Photo taken outside of Cork, Ireland.
Kym McDaniel is an experimental filmmaker, multidisciplinary collaborator, choreographer, curator, performer, and educator. Her films have recently screened in solo and two-person screenings at UnionDocs, Mills Foley Microcinema, Cellular Cinema, Rhizome DC, and the Society for Disability Studies Conference, as well as in group exhibitions at the Whitney Humanities Center at Yale University, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Slamdance, Experiments in Cinema, and Antimatter, among others. Their work has been funded by the New York Council for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York Choreographers Initiative, and institutional grants from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Binghamton University, and the University of Utah.
She began filmmaking after a head injury and resulting chronic illnesses changed her relationship to time, her body, and dance. Their embodiment as a queer femme and engagement in disability culture informs her gaze and current practice as an artist.
She has an MFA in Cinematic Arts from the Department of Film, Video, Animation, and New Genres at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and an Advanced Certificate in Disability Studies from the City University of New York. She is currently an Assistant Professor and Program Director for the Graduate Certificate in Screendance at the University of Utah.