see what gabbi sees
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about
gabriella maria cisneros
Gabriella Cisneros (she/her) is a Mexican-American, Milwaukee-based "Creative" working in video, photography, writing, digital marketing, and design.
vision
Gabbi loves filming and photographing the personal and collective experiences that make us human: concerts, live events, theatre performances, restaurant openings, street festivals, weddings, get-togethers, or walks around the neighborhood.
She thinks that every moment deserves to be captured.
Gabbi's experimental works—video poetry and video essays—document everyday life and explore memory, relationships, the minutiae of everyday life, and coming-of-age understandings of the world around her.
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Her short documentary, "Building, Shelter, Temple" (2018) is about the public library's social functions, focusing on its positive impact on the homeless and impoverished population of Milwaukee. This film has screened at the UW-Milwaukee Union Cinema, the Common Good International Film Festival in California, and the Beloit International Film Festival in Wisconsin.
background
Gabbi graduated from UW-Milwaukee with a BFA in Film and a secondary concentration in Spanish after also receiving the Peck School of the Arts Emerging Artist Award, a Film Portfolio Scholarship, and the Outstanding Scholar Award in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese among other honors. During her time in school, she had three films screened at the Binghamton Student Experimental Film Festival in New York and four films screened at various film festivals at UW-Milwaukee.
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Since graduating, Gabbi has helped shoot and edit short films and documentaries with local filmmakers (KP Kaszubowski, Bill Ware) as well as live music for local bands (SistaStrings, Nickel & Rose, A to Z, DJ Kenny Perez). Her interests in supporting local talent prompted her to do pro-bono video work for Edgar Cuarezma's pop-up bakery "Amano Pan" and Barbara Cerda's non-profit project "Barby the Book Fairy."
She was one of two chosen for a filmmaking internship with 88Nine Radio Milwaukee in early 2019. She later photographed Los Dells Music Festival for 88Nine and NPR's Alt.Latino. She has been a regular videographer/editor for 88Nine's monthly Grace Weber's Music Lab program since 2019.
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In 2019, she collaborated on an experimental documentary-poetry-dance presentation about the Avenues West neighborhood of Milwaukee as part of the Still Waters Collective's Creatives in Residence program. At the end of 2020, she joined the volunteer organization A Mighty Blaze, condensing many hours of their Zoom videos down to 3-minute promos for their weekly interviews with authors.
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Gabbi will have been working full time at Porchlight Book Company for five years in May 2024, and is currently the Creative Director. In her free time, she continues to freelance as a videographer and editor, weight train, plan future travels, explore local restaurants and coffee shops, and attend live music events.
