Trudging Congealed Seas (Pilot)
Trudging Congealed Seas (Pilot), brings together research of familial history/lived experience of the Indo-Caribbean diaspora. As a result of a fire at the records hall in Trinidad and Tobago 1903, my maternal family, the Majaralis and Khans, lost access to information about our lineages prior to being transported to Trinidad to work the cane fields. Much of the information about our ancestry can only be traced back to the mid-1800s and is shared via a complex web of oral telling. Trudging Congealed Seas (Pilot) gives audiences an understanding of my experience as a person of the Indo-Caribbean diaspora and the historical and socio-political impacts of European colonization of the Caribbean. This film is part of a larger web-based project, commencing development on September 9, 2021 with support from the Canada Council for the Arts. As part of the larger project, the footage from my personal archive of audio/visual material from Trinidad and Tobago will be integrated into a net-art inspired ‘choose your own adventure’ style online game.
Trudging Congealed Seas (Pilot) is part of Archival Affections [Themed Commission 2021]
August 27 – November 25, 2021
Presented by Trinity Square Video and supported by the EQ Bank
Featuring works by Vanessa Godden, Monique Todd, Lana Lovell, Yuula Benivolski, Camila Salcedo, Katayoun Jalilipour
Curated by Karina Iskandarsjah
Archival Affections presents the 2021 Themed Commissions, which were produced over a summer residency. This year’s theme invites projects that critically look at one’s relationship to archives; both non-fiction and fictional materials that account for public, private, and cultural memory. Six artists create new digital work that speculates upon unfinished, historical narratives and buried family histories, and re-imagines the physical and metaphorical traces of lost people and places.
In this online presentation, each digital work grapples with various subjects of personal importance: 19th century Iranian imagery through a queer lens; remembering Black resistance and slavery in Canada; sonic representations of the experience of Venezuelan-Canadadian diaspora; disappeared citizens of the USSR; Indo-caribbean migration; and cataloguing spaces of queer joy and pleasure in London (UK). Taking form as a transmedia, online exhibition, each work convenes a broad range of forms, including: field recording, mapping, oral narratives, 3D imaging, forensic fingerprinting, and ASMR. Archival Affections centres modalities of curiosity, speculation, and fiction to meaningfully resurrect and build upon archival material; reimagining and reclaiming the past and present as acts of survivance and resistance.
Visit Archival Affections to explore the rich subjects and dynamic presentations of this year’s 2021 Themed Commission! (launching 27th August)
Archival Affections is made possible through the support of EQ Bank.