Making Space to Redefine

Alison O’Daniel (M.F.A. ’10) is changing the game in art and film

By Richard Chang

Alison O’Daniel (M.F.A. art, 2010) has placed Deaf culture at the focal point in her art and film work, and that has positioned her at the forefront of an international cultural movement. 

The visual artist and filmmaker won a Guggenheim Fellowship in film and video in 2022. That fellowship money allowed her to finish The Tuba Thieves, an independent film that blends documentary with fictional feature-film elements. The movie premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and won widespread critical acclaim, including an award for best sound design at the 2023 Athens International Film and Video Festival. 

Image: Alison O'Daniel. Photo by Caitlin Dennis.

O’Daniel is also a college educator, and after teaching art and filmmaking for a number of years at California College of the Arts in San Francisco, she begins an appointment this fall as the Suraj Israni Associate Professor of Cinematic Arts at UC San Diego. 

For her work in the visual arts and in film, she will receive a 2025 Lauds & Laurels Distinguished Alumni Award from UC Irvine on Nov. 7. Honoring exceptional alumni and community members is UC Irvine’s longest running tradition, and her award also coincides with the 25th anniversary of the Claire Trevor School of the Arts and 60 years of UC Irvine. 

“I'm really honored to receive it,” said O’Daniel. “I’m grateful to still have the opportunity to reflect on how impactful my time at UCI was, and continues to be, and so I'm very touched by it.” 

Things haven’t always been easy for O’Daniel, who has struggled all her life with hearing and sound. She has also faced the typical challenges of being a visual artist, trying to raise money for films and making it in the world of academia.  

Image: Alison O'Daniel, The Elephant Test, 2024. Courtesy of the artist and Commonwealth and Council. Photo by Paul Salveson. 

“When I got out of grad school, there was a dicey feeling for the first few years,” said O’Daniel. “It was precarious. But then I hit the ground running. I was focused, and I have felt it all kind of pay off in the last few years in a way that's been really, deeply gratifying.” 

O’Daniel’s art and film work explores sound, access and complex embodiment through d/Deaf/Hard of Hearing experiences. She has shown her sculptural, installation and video work throughout Europe, Asia and the United States and participated in the Made in L.A. 2018 biennial at the Hammer Museum. She has also shown at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery. She is represented by Commonwealth and Council, a contemporary art gallery located in Koreatown, L.A.  

Through her film work, O’Daniel is known internationally for her innovative use of captions, describing sounds and movement in ways that haven’t quite been done before. 

“I've been deaf or hard of hearing my whole life, so when I realized I could kind of focus on the sound, that was a big shift for me,” said O’Daniel. “I had a series of very empowering experiences that allowed me to recognize the value of being deaf and hard of hearing and gave me expansive ideas about sound, hearing and listening from an embodied, physical space, because often I’m trying to free myself literally from my ears and focus on vibration, or sub-bass frequency, or visual details.”   

Looking back, she deeply values what she learned and experienced at UC Irvine, especially her interactions with the Department of Art faculty. 

“I very much connected with the painters — Monica Majoli, Kevin Appel — he was dear to me conceptually in my work,” said O’Daniel. “Simon Leung was faculty across the entire program and works in five different mediums, which was inspiring. Bruce Yonemoto totally changed my life. I got to practice a bunch of film strategies with him. He also outfitted the film program with a bunch of equipment. I’m making films really because of him.” 

She also credits Juli Carson for giving her a foundation in theory and ideas, and supporting her decision to become an educator. “I was always very challenged by her in a good way,” said O’Daniel. “She gave me a boost to start teaching.”  

Image:  Alison O'Daniel, Still from The Tuba Thieves, 2023.

O’Daniel keeps busy with her film, visual art, and academic work while also carving a space in what she calls “a contemporary disability justice movement.” 

“...when I realized I could kind of  focus on the sound, that was a big shift for me.”

“I’m excited to be working alongside a lot of these artists, whom I would describe as being very empowered,” said O’Daniel. “We benefit from disability activists who came before us, and there's something about the way that all of us are taking up space in the art scene, in the global art community.”  

O’Daniel is working on a new film about “the weaponization of sound.” She also continues to work on software called Opening Captions that she has been developing with help from other academic institutions. Her work has revolutionized the way captions are being used in film and video and is capturing the attention of filmmakers and scholars worldwide.  

“It’s like when they put the cut in the curb for disabled people, it actually wound up benefiting all. That’s what I’d like to do.” 

To learn more about Alison O’Daniel, visit alisonodaniel.com. To learn more about Lauds & Laurels, visit engage.alumni.uci.edu.

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CONNECT - Fall 2025