curated by Cindy Sissokho Event

Cindy Sissokho
Curator

Artists
Mona Benyamin, Autumn Knight, Tanoa Sasraku, Rosa-Johan Uddoh

this is a love poem, is a group exhibition that reclaims the language of humour through a Black feminist perspective as found articulated in contemporary performance and poetry. It offers a response on how political satire is an unapologetic and poetic tool for resistance and laughter, a measure to provoke unconscious discomfort from the receiver. The exhibition allows us to question how, through time, the Black body has fed colonial imaginaries within comedy through inappropriate representations, roles and caricatures. It is a statement of how it is reappropriated today as a virulent tool for testimony, shifting narratives from mainstream to traditional formats. From a theatrical reappropriation of the figure of Pierrot the clown, to a TV show of irrational improvisation, the exhibition moves away from the historically hegemonic forms of satire. It is through complexified narratives, in which the performative Black body exists, that it offers nuanced critiques on colonialism, nationalism, identity, and belonging. Awkward gestures, exaggerated facial expressions, the body as a prop are all a part of the staging of humor with the virulent words that accompanies it. A virulent love language. The exhibition will present works both at E X I L E’s gallery space and online with the parallel launch of the new online platform E X I L E TV.