Exhibition view by Nico Pistec

A Vessel. A Cage. A Machine. A Temple
 11-25 Oct 2024

(more images to come)

Midiɛŋtsɛ (Mitsu) explores the intersection of identity, power, and representation, focusing particularly on the body as a site of both resistance and vulnerability. The concept of the "oppositional gaze," as articulated by bell hooks, plays a significant role in my practice. hooks emphasizes the power of the gaze as a form of resistance, particularly for Black women, who have historically been subjected to stereotypes and erasure in visual culture. In this large-scale collage, I occupy multiple positions—observer, subject, performer– in time and space; bodies simultaneously fragmented and whole, their size and positioning dislocated but in community. By equipping all selves, past and present, with ancestral memory, cultural hybridity and the possibility to hold, return and share the gaze, I want to playfully invite the viewer to question the power dynamics inherent in looking, being looked at, and self-representation. The work responds to the absence of representation I have felt growing up, never seeing bodies or experiences like mine reflected in popular culture and narratives. It reflects on how race and gender are overlapping social markers that shape the way my body is perceived and how I thus learned to navigate spaces. By creating this work, I seek to create a room that has never existed for me. Midiɛŋtsɛ (Mitsu) asks not just how we see ourselves but how we might construct spaces—both literal and metaphorical—where our bodies can exist without the confines of the heteronormative, europatriarchal gaze. It is a celebration of multiplicity, an invitation to reconsider what it means to belong, and a challenge to the systems that have long rendered certain bodies invisible. It’s a practice in creating room for bodies that challenge normative ideals of beauty, belonging, and identity, and a reclamation of the narratives that have shaped, yet never fully captured, who we are.