The first room of the intallation is a light and audio installation that builds on ideas and visual explorations from earlier works (see ‘Somatic Sation’ exhibition, 2017; “Radical Imaginaries”, 2015), this dismantling of the black body visualizes Frantz Fanon’s description of the process of racialization: “my body returned to me spread-eagled, disjointed, redone, draped in mourning on this white winter’s day.”
The second room in the installation consists of two red printed banners affixed to opposing walls in the gallery space and a wooden podium in its center that viewers can step onto. From their position atop the podium, viewers can gaze upon the rest of the exhibition space once more, this time through sheets of red acrylic that decipher hidden images and text found on the red banners.
Unbeknownst to the audience, the podium is fashioned after a slave auction block, the ultimate symbol of objectification, dehumanization and exploitation – and yet the only position from atop which the installation can be fully experienced. Playing on ideas from feminist standpoint theory, here, within the space of the installation, as in society, what is seen and unseen is dictated by one’s positionality.
Photos from Nnebe’s 2015 ‘Radical Imaginaries’ (a project created while studying at McGill University), as well as works from her 2017 solo exhibition ‘Somatic Satiation’ which both inspired the 2019 installation.
Key words: Black visibility; opacity; stand-point theory; Black spatiality; positionality; phenomneology; hesitation; Fanon; objectification; racial capitalism; the gaze; raciaization; Blackness;
The artist would like to acknowledge funding support from the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.