MADE OF HONEY, GOLD AND MARIGOLD

Genevieve Wallen February 2020

“The sun opens the floorboards to light, the light shafts gradually towards her ankle, moves up her body like a brush, feathery. She watches herself in half light, half dark, and it is this preoccupation with herself that makes someone stop at the window. Though it is not seduction, but a genuine fascination with the sun creeping up her ankle.” – Dionne Brand, At the Full and Change of the Moon

 While working on my computer on a Tuesday afternoon, a sunray pierced the clouds, filling the room with soft, warm light. The sunbeam caressed my right cheek and then proceeded to stream down my neck, shoulder, arm, and hand. I closed my eyes, feeling the sun’s soothing embrace, basking in this fleeting moment of bodily awareness. The parts of my body that were kissed by the sun became alive with hues of copper, gold and red. Dionne Brand's words resurfaced in my mind, providing language for this moment, an experience that I am on the verge of understanding, a sense of myself that isn’t fully formulated. I remembered Maya, one of Brand's protagonists in the novel At the Full and Change of the Moon, and how the sun is a witness as well as an activator of her distant yearnings and evolving desires. From the ways Maya's body animates when it touches her, to her observations about her realities as a sex worker in Amsterdam or her upbringing in Curacao, the sun is central to how she articulates her thoughts about human relations and a sense of self that is deeply affected by her environment. Maya's sharp reflection and relatable fascinations about “her body’s shine” made me return to these pages more than once, soaking up the prose of this literary sun. These poetic descriptions left an imprint creating a growing need to co-create a space where the sun is an agent of sensory engagement, provoking deeper contemplations on sensuality, eroticism, pleasure, desires and interiority. The selected works by Kapwani Kiwanga, Kosisochukwu Nnebe, Rajni Perera, draw attention to a multilayered sensory ecology that weaves together embodiment, space, and the radiance of the sun. Mundane, yet seducing moments such as the warmth of soaking in the ambient morning light or relishing in the golden hues of the magic hour can spark meditations on a specific being-ness that is responsive to the present moment— a quiet unfolding of bodily and spiritual presence. In this exhibition, the sun is a catalyst providing a language that infuses wonder and awe into the amplitudes of Black and Brown inner lives, substituting oppressive imaginaries for consuming fantasies. Contemporary poets such as Rupi Kaur, Upile Chisala, and Nayyirah Waheed compare the spectrum of melanin's luminescence to luxurious and sun-like materials such as honey, gold, and marigold. By employing these qualifiers as an affirmation of inner and outer radiance, it also addresses a strong desire to assert a bodily embrace that is expansive while reclaiming melanated people's cosmic relationship to the sun.

Yes, there's a place in the sun

Where there's hope for ev'ryone

(…)Got to find me a place in the sun

-Stevie Wonder, “A Place in the Sun”

Snuggled up in layers of clothes and winter coats, and lounging on fuzzy blankets on a bright snowy day, a group of artists and staff share a delicious soup and hot beverages outside the gallery. Orchestrated by artist Basil AlZeri, this interactive performance, everyone under the sun acts as an introduction to the exhibition. Hosted a few days prior the opening, this playful winter picnic where the participants are invited to shake off their blues and soak up the rays of the winter sun, is an experiment with corporeal engagement that draws on deeper themes within the exhibition. The ingredients all conjure the sun through association to colour, warmth, and geographical provenance. Beyond the poetry of this enchanting moment, the artist is interested in exploring what can actually manifest, in terms of human connectivity within this unusual setting. AlZeri asks the following questions: What is the place of programming vis-à- vis a perceived prominence of exhibitions within galleries? How can we create spaces and situations that can be inclusive? How can we walk out, but walk out together? How do we hold collective goals that embrace everyone equally? How can we share something simple and beautiful? How can we learn about the land where the building stands, the land that we stand on? 

Opening the exhibition in the middle of winter, notions of physical adaptability and resilience also come to mind. My body, my Black body is starving for sunlight, my body’s shine weathered months ago, in this moment I am craving another self, a different kind of relationship with my body. I am contemplating the distant summer, like Maya I want to oil my skin under a sun lamp, patiently rubbing until I feel whole again. 

“Though nothing could beat the shine of an island arrival fresh and full of sand, nothing could beat water and close sun, nothing could break the equator’s teak breath on the body.”   -Dionne Brand, At the Full and Change of the Moon

The sun is slowly setting between two mountains, filling the sky with deep and dark orange hues. As a viewer, it is hard to geographically situate the scene as the cinematographic frame is devoid of any distinct landmarks or human activity. A slow- paced succession of animated images of sunsets unfolds over the course of 17 minutes. This video work The Sun Never Sets by Kapwani Kiwanga exposes the viewer to a set of imagery capturing more than what meets the eye. Contemplative in its visual quality, the title of the video references the popular adage, “the sun never sets on the British Empire”. This celebratory claim from the Victorian colonial period points to the all encompassing and global scale of  British imperialism. Collaborating with participants from Ireland, Canada, Tanzania, India, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Myanmar, and South Africa, the work manifests the original claim and makes visible a continuous sunset across the former (and current) British Empire. As each contributor documents the setting sun, Kiwanga asked that they choose one or two sites where the sun was visible and relevant in thinking about possession/dispossession of territories. Materially framing current and ancient parts of the dominion, this project highlights wider attitudes towards land use, value, and the role of photography as a weapon pushing the imperialist agenda. Early depictions of landscape in painting and photography often illustrated the space as vacant of human habitation and ready for settlement, playing a crucial role in the formulation and dissemination of an imperialist appropriation of nature. Author James R. Ryan explains, in the book Picturing Empire: Photography and the Visualization of the British Empire, that the excitement and proliferation of ‘scientific’ excursions on colonies developed a peculiar market for landscape photography. On one hand the Victorians had an appetite for ‘tasteful’ images of foreign lands. And on the other hand, governing entities of the Crown were using commercial photography for land surveying and data gathering, further emphasizing dubious ideas concerning civilization and progress.  An example cited in Ryan’s research is the history of landscape photography of the Canadian west in the second half of the nineteenth century, “that shows how photography was closely applied to topographical surveying and the marketing for the Canadian Pacific Railway.” In The Sun Never Sets, it is fascinating to notice that many of the recorded landscapes are similarly framed as empty or barely inhabited.  This framing of landscape perpetuates a visual language that was once employed for imperialist ventures. The marks of landscape alteration, resource mining, and the violent subjugation of peoples are hidden to the viewers who are unfamiliar with the spaces portrayed, but perhaps they are only present to knowledgeable or willing onlookers.  As a ubiquitous witness, the sun has become an exporter of ideologies from one edge of the globe to another, which profoundly affected collective ways of being, distorting one’s relation with nature and human value. In this work, as in Dionne Brand’s novel, there is interplay between the sun, conscious embodiment, and the formulation of situatedness on colonized spaces that is physical at first, and reaches the realm of collective history and individual memory. The positionality of the collaborators in this video affects their rapport with the chosen site, and the sun can mirror the ways in which their body navigates it. Maya’s sun-body relationship is intersectional. From her life at home in Curaçao, a Dutch Caribbean Island, to her migration to Amsterdam, the sun is an intrinsic figure linking her exploration of sensuality through the male gaze, her observation of relational toxicity existing in her family, and the effects of gender, race and class. All of which are internalized and articulated through the simplest occurrence like the when sun is glistening off her dad’s silver helmet at work, a moment when he appears light, weightless, not like at home. Her distinct experience because of the interconnectedness of race, class, gender, and her experience of migration, is in resonance with a broader formulation of place and global histories. When looking at the sun, what is the formulation of the self that comes to mind, what kind of memories resurface, and how does it connect you with your surroundings? What are the circumstances that brought you here?  

“What she wanted to dream, and dreamed, was her affair. It pleased her to dwell upon color and sort bready textures and light, on a complex beauty, on gemlike surfaces. (...) She was eighteen years old, and the world waited. To caress her.” -Gwendolyn Brooks, Maud Martha

Next to Kapwani Kiwanga’s video is Kosisochukwu Nnebe's installation And the world waited. To caress her. Showcased together, there is a deliberate shift from a socially constructed set of linguistic and visual patterns about sovereignty and imperial culture instilled by the sun to an introspective exploration that refuses to internalize colonial violence. By juxtaposing, two ends of a spectrum, the audience is invited to consider the multifaceted ways in which the sun is an activator of thought and bodily awareness, and as a signifier of intricate belief systems. Inspired by literary works, Nnebe's work is informed by authors Gwendolyn Brooks, Kevin Quashie (The Sovereignty of Quiet), Audre Lorde (The Uses of the Erotic), as well as psychologist and writer Esther Perel. In the same way that Gwendolyn Brooks’s novel intentionally and slowly reveals the character of Maud Martha, Nnebe has carefully create a visual language that situates the erotic as a prowess of the imagination, a vibrancy, or a spark of life that nourishes one’s inner life. Maud Martha is portrayed as a Black woman who despite struggling with her modest appearance and systematic oppression aliment desires for luxurious sensorial encounters with a thirst for erotic manifestations. And like Maya, she chased instances of aliveness and craved carelessness. To free her spirit she welcomed each moment where her imagination could be boundless, and thus cultivating a rich inner life. As described by Esther Perel in “Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic” and adrienne maree brown in “Pleasure Activism”, the notion of eroticism goes beyond the realm of sexuality or sexual desire. It is a threshold to a rich spiritual life, a mystical experience involving the body and the mind, and leading to an attuned understanding of the multi-dimensionality of pleasure and feeling good. Maud Martha encompasses all of that. Dionne Brand and Gwendolyn Brooks have both created an imaginative vocabulary for an interior life that is vast. In processing and articulating the potentiality for an expansion of the self through quiet contemplations, Nnebe devised an immersive environment bringing the audience to withdraw inward. This metaphorical experience departs from a genuine effort to pin point the sources that trigger her erotic imagination: “The sound of utensils clattering in outdoor courtyards; the sweet tartness of cranberries in a bowl of my mother’s porridge; the graze of teeth against needy nipple; the press of a face against my belly; the slow bloom of flowers pushing through the cracks beneath my feet.” These instances of sensory indulgence are represented in the gallery as text based work that only become visible with the glass-filled atrium when the sun hits the work at certain angles. It is an ephemeral profession, revealing itself only for those with patience and pointing to the imaginary experiences of other places, lives and bodies. Stepping into the gallery space, a source of light is bleeding through a small entrance, inviting visitors step into a small nook. In this enclosed and warm space infused with an ethereal golden glow, the sodium vapor light unites the decor and bodies. A hand-crafted book is laying on a table, waiting to be held and its textured surface to be touched, its writing decrypted. The pages, appearing blank at first, are simultaneously concealing and revealing  the deeper parts of the artist’s inner world. And the world waited. To caress Her entertains notions of being fully in the world, feeling deeply, and using the senses as gateways to look inward, to articulate yearnings, desires, and hunger. Inner whispers of truths that haven’t been discovered, dreams that are on the verge of occurring, desires waiting to be owned, and the promise of harnessing an expansive humanity.

many tried

but cannot tell the difference 

between a marigold and my skin 

both of them are an orange sun

blinding the ones who have not learned to love the light

  -Rupi Kaur, the sun and her flowers

Forming a line, three humanoid figures are staring up at a glowing sun surrounded by distant planets and star systems. Their arms are elevated, hands joint in a prayer position with their knees bent and the feet are planted on a luminous platform. They appear as though they are synching their bodies together to become one with the celestial elements, suggesting a ritual gracing and embracing of the cosmos. Arms elevated they are welcoming the sun rays, drawing sun magic to recharge their senses with solar and planetary energies. This large scale painted sci-fi scene is complemented by three luminous sculptures and a series of technical drawings displaying the artist’s creative thought process. Working in close collaboration with Toronto-based lighting design and manufacturing studio, Concord Lights, the artist created a series of sculptural lamps which curves and shapes recall organic forms and retro futuristic technologies. The atmospheric inter-planetary installation produced by Perera uses imagery and language to suggest the interwoven evolution of living organisms and human emancipation. The most imposing light sculpture of the series, A Great Ship Came And Went Great Ship Came And Went, is an interpretation of a seed, a womb full of life patiently hibernating, awaiting its full development, and like the beings on the mural, to reach its final form is aided by the nurturing warmth of a sunray. Situated on the upper floor of the gallery, this multi-media installation can be either experienced as the beginning or the end of the exhibition. By spatially introducing the works as simultaneously the start and an expansion of the proposed theme, it allows to further collapse past, present and future. Perera’s universe is a divination, transcending time and generations, prompting discussions about existing manifestations of alternative worlds and subversive futurities. Similar to Nnebe’s work, this series instills a specific being-ness that is responsive to a quiet unfolding of bodily and spiritual awakening. However here, the erotic is a mystic experience beyond earthly realms. Blessing us with the gift of what authors Walidah Imarisha and adrienne mare brown call “visionary fiction”, Perera’s work can be seen as a reformulation of the sci-fi genre that is focused towards building new, freer worlds. Imarisha and brown coined this term in order to foster a space of creative exploration sustaining the ongoing process of decolonization. In this sphere, the unshackling of imagination allows for a liberation that is limitless. “And for those of us from communities with historic collective trauma, we must understand that each of us is already science fiction walking on two legs.”   Perera’s growing multi-verse departed from a fascination with the resilience and adaptability of people operating in margins, such as members of diasporic communities who are always re-imagining and re-inventing themselves. The sun-connected beings depicted on the mural are linked to previous painted series (M)otherworld and Traveler, continuing a mythology and anchoring an attunement of the self that is beyond European epistemologies of minoritized identities. Perera’s intergalactic warriors and divine monsters are boundless, carrying knowledge of ancient civilizations, holding on seeds and roadmaps to worlds beyond the milkyway. Perera’s tales are part of a joint global conversation about the futurity of Black and Brown bodies, demonstrating the synchronism of all branches of futurism, from Desi Futurism to Afrofuturism, they fuel discourses on beauty, pleasure, spirituality that nourish cosmic fantasies and tender bodily awareness–a full-bodied luminance and opulence that cannot be contained.

This exhibition departed from a sentiment, one that was difficult to articulate. How can one describe the power of a physical experience that encompasses so much more than its ensued sensorial enjoyment? The fictional novel At a Full and Change of the Moon, initiated me to a vocabulary opening a myriad of relationships that the body creates with natural elements, linking a sense of self with the sun or bodies of water. Brand’s words were a gateway to seeing Black life through touch, smell, and taste. And it is with an acute understanding of sensorial modalities that one can be receptive to more abstract concepts on being-ness, on the capacity of the erotic to enrich one’s inner life. In this exhibition, this journey starts from an examination of the land, the sun, and the body. Asking how they can inform and situate one another, to then delve deeper into the construction of a mythic self, enhanced by the sun which gradually regains its mythical status.