Our Kisses Are Petals, Exhibition at Baltic, Baltic, Gateshead
- Submitting institution
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University of Central Lancashire
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 22984
- Type
- M - Exhibition
- Venue(s)
- Baltic, Gateshead
- Open access status
- -
- Month of first exhibition
- May
- Year of first exhibition
- 2018
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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1
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- A series of seven 2.74x2.13 metre digital prints on cloth employing the patterns, colours, and symbolism of the Kanga, worn by East African women as a shawl, head scarf, baby carrier, or wrapped around the waist. Kangas consist of three parts: the pindo (border), the mji (central motif), and the jina (message or ‘name’), which often takes the form of a riddle or proverb. Kangas are ‘speaking clothes’, which employ ‘the language of image, pattern, and text through which one woman’s outfit talks to another.
These works engaged in a dialogue with each other and with an audience, both through their individual jina, borrowed from influential black, gay, writers, James Baldwin, Maud Sulter, Essex Hemphill and Audre Lorde, and through an open invitation, visitors are encouraged to rearrange the hanging works using a system of ropes and pulleys to form their own poetry. The suspended Kangas took on a flag-like quality, evoking regimental and ceremonial colonial flag-bearing. Through disrupting the familiar aesthetics and function of flags, questions were raised about belonging and identity, asking participants to create their own narratives and begin new conversations.
Exploring the role of flags in British culture I produced a major outdoor commission for Great Exhibition of the North by designing a flag which was positioned on the roof of BALTIC. This was raised as a commentary on processes associated with ceremony, subverting such traditions and to encourage a questioning by audiences, it asked: ‘Why are you looking?’ Presented in tandem with Raising the Flag, a twelve-week programme of free public performances and community events. Working alongside artist Richard Bliss, who knows the city and the groups well, we collaborated with and gave visibility to marginalised creative communities ensuring that the gallery became a renewed focus for activity through live performance, poetry and music.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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