Breaking the Promise of Tropical Emptiness, Kama La Mackerel, photo taken by Nadine Moonsamy.
Opening on March 13th by appointment, we invite you to explore Artcite’s spring exhibition, featuring artist Kama La Mackerel Breaking the Promise of Tropical Emptiness: trans subjectivity in the Mauritian postcard.
In this body of work, Kama La Mackerel revisits stereotypical landscapes of Mauritius, their home-island “from beaches to waterfalls, from sugarcane fields to the seven coloured earth of Charamel,” reclaiming these sites which are so often portrayed in postcards and tourist brochures (La Mackerel). While these spaces are supposed to represent the island, they are devoid of any form of local subjectivity or Black/Brown body. This exhibition features a series of large scale, vivid and immersive photographs, taken by South-African writer and scholar Nedine Moonsamy.
In these photographs, La Mackerel redefines the aesthetics of the Mauritian postcard by positioning their Black/Brown, queer/transgender body in the foreground of cliché “tropical” landscapes, foregrounding trans subjectivity at the centre of the visual artefact. Through these visual encounters, the viewer is encouraged to consider the colonial implications of the ways in which island spaces are commodified, and how local subjecthood is uprooted by these images of the utopic, orientalist, “tropical” destinations.
The upcoming exhibition will also premiere La Mackerel's newest work, a video installation entitled Your Body Is The Ocean. In this single channel video, developed in collaboration with Mexican-Canadian filmmaker Alejandro de Leon, La Mackerel “weaves together poetry, rituals and performance to situate the queer/trans femme Mauritian body as a spiritual force that speaks to and from the island,” (La Mackerel).
Artcite Inc. is NOW OPEN to the public
Wednesday to Saturday- 12pm to 5pm
Artcite Inc. can accommodate up to 7 visitors at one time per private appointment. High-touch areas like doors will be sanitized in between each visitor. To visit Artcite, you MUST wear a mask, and sanitize hands upon entry. Our washrooms are currently closed until further notice.