Set in a city that has been overtaken by an unprecedented fog, I Can’t Remember a Time I Didn’t Need You is an immersive adventure game exploring the complex relations between cultural representations, surveillance, and the everyday experiences of Black Trans people. Infrastructures of bureaucracy and monitoring permit and restrict access to the game, forcing users to reconsider their own identity and sense of belonging. In this immersive adventure, Brathwaite-Shirley focuses on grieving, remembrance, and hope for the experiences of Black Trans people, creating an archive that centres and upholds their right to life.

Thanks to Weise7 for technical collaboration. The work was co-comissioned by QUAD.

Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley is an artist working predominantly in animation, sound, performance, and video games to communicate the experiences of being a Black Trans person. Spurred on by a desire to record the “history of Trans people both living and past”, their work can often be seen as a Trans archive, where the experiences of Black Trans people are stored for the future.