bio / contact info
< heads up - still working on populating this site with my work, but here's my old website and here's an intro to some of the stuff i do: >
Julia Dratel (she/they) grew up in New York City and lives in Chicago. They studied Cinema & Media Studies at the University of Chicago. They are a photographer, filmmaker, writer, producer/organizer, DJ, drinker of iced coffee year-round, and bug-lover.
Her work has appeared in/at The Wire, The Chicago Reader, Jezebel, Denver Quarterly, Tone Glow, the Ann Arbor Film Festival, Render International Music Video Festival (Vancouver, BC), Fridman Gallery (NYC), Sol Koffler Gallery (Rhode Island School of Design), Elastic Arts (where she also produces experimental performance & community programming), the Hideout, and elsewhere. They also regularly collaborate with musicians and visual artists, with recent projects including a video installation with The Weaving Mill, a music video with Mind Over Mirrors, and album art for Devouring the Guilt, Ken Vandermark’s Marker, and Circuit Des Yeux, as well as in-house video content for Thrill Jockey Records and Don Giovanni Records. She has also made a feature-length experimental documentary/oral history film, Battery Park City, about her neighbors’ first-hand experiences of September 11th, 2001 and the nature of communicating traumatic experience. She also was a contributing curator (with Naomi Huffman and Megan Kirby) to the Book Fort at the 2018 Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago, IL. In autumn 2018, Elastic Arts presented a solo exhibition of their work, Intellectual Property, curated by Kim Alpert.
She DJs a weekly radio show “Souled & New” on WHPK and co-produces a monthly comedy-and-leftist-organizing showcase Monkey Wrench with Arish Singh. She has also done video/multimedia work on behalf of defense for people fighting incarceration.
There is more stuff too, but writing bios kind of feels like talking to yourself about yourself and not in a good way (there is a good way, they think, maybe).
Reach out: