BIO

Lali Wilde, born Ola’i Manu Mele Isabella Wildeboar, came into this world at the same moment an earthquake shook the San Francisco Bay area. 

Her earliest memories are of doing performances with her aerialist and yogi mom in the Mystic Family Circus, and playing in the tour bus of her guitarist father’s bands as they drove around the country. By the time she was ten, she had performed at major festivals along the west coast, including Burningman, Lightning in a Bottle, Symbiosis, Outside Lands, and more. These formative years showed her the life of an artist close up: a life where reality and fantasy were always intertwined. 

In eighth grade she enrolled in Oakland School for the Arts, where she studied Vocal Music for two years before switching to the Literary Arts emphasis. At age 15 her father taught her how to use Ableton Live, and she recorded and self-produced her first album of original songs. At age 17, she wrote and self-published her first book, a choose-your-own-adventure novel with 9 different endings.

At Hampshire College, she engaged in four years of performance art, music, filmmaking, sociology, psychology, philosophy, and social activism. She emerged having created a 12-week performance series and an album of original music. Her thesis work, made in addition to these artistic projects, was an in-depth study of extremism in social groups—religious, political, and interpersonal—and how it related to the power of artistry and leadership in performance.

After graduation, she launched her studio for creative completions: Lavali Studio, offering services across branding, marketing strategy, developmental editing, and project production. Her years of experience in many artistic circles, and her sustained interest in the psycho-socio power of language, made her a natural guide for others building visionary works. From 2022 - 2025 she worked closely with the cult fashion brand Emily the Strange. She took on many roles for this brand including brand advisor, strategic collaborator, licensing coordinator, design review, and content creator. Additionally, she has helped birth three complete nonfiction books, a number of websites, extensive social media content, and guided many individuals in finding their voice and sharing their message with the world.

In 2023, she began collaborating with legendary video artist John Sanborn on a series of multimedia immersive augmented reality works called “Out of Chaos”. The first edition of this work showed at the MEET Center in Milan, Italy in 2024, and the second showed at the Anita Beckers Gallery in Frankfurt, Germany in 2025. She also collaborated on several other works with him, including an augmented reality Haunted House which exhibited in NYC on Halloween 2025.

In 2025 she was commissioned by long-running avant-garde musical group, The Residents, to create a stop motion clown themed music video called, “Dead Already”.

Lali Wilde’s most central work is her flagship project, “Captain Earthquake”, a sprawling, musical, multimedia episodic adventure which she creates entirely by her own hand. Scriptwriting, acting, animating, filmmaking, sound design, and songwriting are only a few of the skills involved in bringing this show to life. Its story is that of a witch who is cast astray after losing her home and family, and finds herself at the whim of a group of kids who beg her to play along with them in their game of piracy. She is soon carried away by the fantasy, and devotes herself to becoming the greatest pirate her world has ever seen. The story is based on characters and places invented by Lali in her earliest childhood, and it has been in active development her entire life.

In all of her work, Lali Wilde is constantly pushing at the edges of reality—questioning, investigating, and playing with what is possible. Her work dances with whimsy and humor while simultaneously confronting deeper questions of morality, meaning, and spirituality. Her multimedia approach makes for projects that expand beyond a medium, and develop a world entirely of their own. She hopes for her audiences to get lost within them.