kosisochukwu nnebe

"I want you to know that I am hiding something from you / since what I might be is uncontainable" is a two-part installation is concerned with the perception and visibility of racialized bodies. Nnebe creates an interactive experience for the viewer by playing with opacity and space; the act of navigating the gallery becomes a medium for the work itself. Focused on the process of racialization, specifically on how it impacts Black communities, the work attempts to ground discussions around representation in theory coming from the French Caribbean, as well as African cosmologies and folkloric traditions.

Key words: Black visibility; opacity; stand-point theory; Black spatiality; positionality; phenomneology; hesitation; Fanon; objectification; racial capitalism; the gaze; raciaization; Blackness; recognition; tricskter

The second room visualizes the violence inherent in attempts to render the other transparent.  The installation in this room features an exploded view of the artist’s body, with larger than life body parts printed on acrylic and hung from the gallery ceiling. Similar to a previous piece by the artist (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.” Light bulbs are placed in between the sheets of acrylic, projecting the image of the artist’s body onto the gallery walls. Viewers are invited to navigate the room, with the projected images painted onto their clothes and skin, implicating them in the violence of the aftermath of a moment of racialization.  While the installation serves in part to depict both the physical and psychological impacts of such biases on the day to day lives of Black people, it also hints at resistance in the creation of a new alterity and hybridity.

The artist would like to acknowledge funding support from the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.