I'm Dana! An Indigenous video game designer, artist, and games researcher. Lover of all things whimsical, weird, and cute. My research revolves around affect, video games, play, storytelling, and representation — specifically North American Indigenous peoples from the Southeastern US. A member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, I'm dedicated to illustrating stories revolving around Indigenous identity and the Digital Indian; a contemporary amalgamation of Indigeneity in the age of meta.I was the recipient of an Andrew W. Mellon research fellowship at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke (21-22), presenting a digital exhibition of art created in conencetraion camps during World War II in Theresienstadt (now the Czech Republic) titled Surviving Silence: Voices of Terezin. I am currently the gracious recipient of a Mozilla Foundation Impossible Project grant for an indie RPG puzzle game, EYE-RIS, created with a team of fellow students at SUNY UB.I'm currently an MFA student entering my third year in SUNY University at Buffalo's Department of Media Study!

'in my dreams' (2025)
'in my dreams' is a recreation of my childhood — teenage bedroom, exploring nostalgia, femininity, and Indigeneity in contemporary media. Featuring Indigenous characters like Booker Dewitt (Bioshock: Infinite), Delsin Rowe (InFamous: Second Son), Ratonhnhaké:ton/Connor Kenway (Assassin's Creed III), and Nathan Explosion (Metalocalypse), I sought to explore the ties between these mediated versions of Indigeneity and my own as a Lumbee (Southeastern American Indigenous person). Likewise, the juxtaposition of soft pinks and warm hues paired with 'masculine' materialities seeks to explain the enmeshment of gender stereotypes and real-world Indigenous girls. In 'in my dreams' the house is approached as not only an affective vehicle, but also as a gamified state. As such, there are multiple items scattered about the installation for viewer exploration.On the Disney princess CRT are films created by myself that reflect my growth as a person, especially as it relates to my relationship between land, identity, and embodiment. Text is added to create an affective, gamified landscape in which memories that are personal to me, can also be presented and received as personal by others, as well.

Photos courtesy of Misael Hernandez, 2025.

'we'll see you when you come home' (2024)

'homemovie#2'
(2025)

You can find a list of my conference presentations below:“Playing with Affect: How Video Games Make Us Feel," Worldmaking at the World’s End: A Graduate Conference on Research Based Creative Practice, Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art, NY, February 9, 2025.“Desperate Infrastructures: Elemental Life Cycles and Body as Infrastructure in OFF (2008),” Meaningful Play 2024, Carnegie Mellon University, PA, October 17, 2024.“Japanese Horror Games and Rust Belt America: Rust Palaces and Environmental Storytelling in Japanese Horror Series Silent Hill,” Replaying Japan 2024, SUNY University at Buffalo, NY, August 20, 2024.My 2024 paper, "Desperate Infrastructures" was published in the 2024 Meaningful Play Conference Proceedings, which can be found online right over here -->

Hunt-Locklear, Dana. “Desperate Infrastructures: An Analysis of Elemental Life Cycles and Infrastructure in OFF (2008).” Meaningful Play 2024 Proceedings, Play Story Press, 2025, pp. 43–59.

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