Gallery
Cutting Object
The blade creates borders but can also shatter them. The blade marks identities onto the body, which can facilitate or prevent free movement. The blade identifies family, roots, cultures. The blade plunged in the fire marks the skin, so that we recognise and so that we differentiate. The blade creates beauty spots but can also destroy beauty. The blade creates riches for some but can also bar access for others. In the photos, we can see a mixing of signs on the skin, Amazigh signs, Adinkra symbols from Ghana. The lines on sub-Saharan cloths also trace identities, cults, social clans. Lines on the body delineate identities, blades of light and darkness play out on the folds of the skin to enhance and obscure features. These images were taken by participants using different devices (mobile phones, cameras). From the first exercise – with a focus on the body, its parts – to the staged rehearsal of identity making – these images speak of fluid encounters (but not without frictions) between people, places, cultures.
