MASTER PROJECT
Rituals Talking Decology (working title)
SPRING 2025
-Define my terms: hybridity, sustainability, colonialism (maybe imperialism, modernism (Achille Mbembé?), decolonisation, decoloniality- check Alanna Lockward from decolonial æsthetics).
-racial capitalocene from francoise verges, expand? link to glissant?
- link Haraway and Ferdinand in my work. bring in the ‘random thread’ again? from Dørteskel short film.
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RITUALS TALKING DECOLOGY looks at the workshop as a specific participatory and ritual artistic practice for imagining just and sustainable futures exemplified in Donna Haraway’s Chtulucene and Malcom Ferdinand’s World-Ship. Decoloniality towards sustainably just futures seen through an ecological lens is how I am currently defining the term Decology.
This research aims to explore the ‘becoming-with’ of these imaginations, while being aware of one’s situated knowledge, through a form of care-informed ritual-workshops. These workshops are ritual and collective spaces for knowledge-sharing between, across and within (non-)human, natural and man-made bodies. An example of the non-human can be flora and fauna. Natural bodies are for example geological formations and water. Man-made bodies go from a woven tablecloth to a ceramic cup. By looking at decoloniality from an ecological context, I want to collectively explore how identifying with these bodies allows for an awareness of the ‘other’.
Through my own lens as a situated hybrid body (mixed Caribbean-European woman of colour, mother, artist and diasporic immigrant living in Norway) I question the following:
-How do hybrid bodies experience colonialism and heal from this?
-How can we ‘decologise’ our thought and behavioural patterns towards each other (human, non-human, man-made and natural) and our surroundings, through communication and knowledge-sharing ritual and artistic practices ? Can writing letters to our past ancestors be done from a new hybrid more-than-human species perspective?
-What can we humans learn from other non-human, natural and man-made bodies about ‘becoming-with’, through care-informed knowledge-sharing? What does that communication and knowledge-sharing entail? how can we identify with these bodies without falling into the exploitative trap of capitalism and colonialism of the Anthropocene that generate extinction and harm?
As my practice is rooted in collaboration, defining the human constellations of my context is a major part of my research process. I will first explore this through different stages with human hybrids who share similarities with my context of being a European-Caribbean woman of colour, mother, artist, immigrant living in the Nordics.
_ The first constellation involves my sisters and I unpacking our experiences as french-trinbagonian women of colour growing up in France and Trinidad. This unpacking is done through ritual discussions done online, and letter-writing via a notebook that we send to each other, thus building up on letters written to each other.
_ The second constellation involves a group of four mothers, with a Caribbean and European background, who live in Norway or in the Nordics. These workshops are not as yet defined: in keeping with ethical artistic practices of care and reciprocity I wish to define the workshops together with the collaborators. Each will be bringing in their own perspective of generational knowledge, healing and identity. These workshops are meant to be just as beneficial for my research as it is for their own work.
_ The third constellation is a broader group of first and second generation immigrants living in Norway with various racial and cultural backgrounds. I consider these as hybrids like myself because many have grown up/lived in Norway while retaining their ‘otherness’: almost as if they grew up in their parents’ country at home and in Norway outside home. This complex, human-made dichotomy, also speaks to inclusivity, a subject particularly present in today’s Norwegian society which is supposedly modern and inclusive. These workshops will take place together with artist and graphist Marie Payan and Sletteløkka Grendehus in line with some of the projects that the various community groups have started (‘recipe book’ project and Språkkafé). In keeping with the ethical artistic practices I am still developing and exploring, I wish to weave my practice into already existing community-based tapestries and see how the workshops can be developed together with the community.
_ The fourth constellation is specific to parents of mixed children. In line with generational knowledge and passing on decolonial ways of being and seeing the world, I was curious to talk to other parents whose children were mixed like myself. These ritual-workshops, which don’t start until 2026, are to be planned together with an FAU leader (Foreldrenes Arbeidsutvalg) with the Akademmiet Realfagskole in Oslo.
CONCRETE THINGS-
- RITUAL IS MY METHOD! the workshop as a ritual and participatory artistic practice.
- merging of the participatory side of my practice with this whole ecology/way of life side of my practice (linked to the agency of passing on knowledge to my daughter) see link to ‘collection of thoughts on participatory art’:
On a larger scale, what bubbled up all these thoughts on decolonizing my experiences as a mixed person of colour is the realisation that my daughter could potentially have an even more complex relationship to her identity than I did. Or not. But this idea of passing-on knowledge based on my experiences became important, for her to have an awareness and preparedness of the complexity of her identity. Poor child, scottish heritage, norwegian, trinidadian and french, not to mention currently living and growing up in Norway. Passing-on knowledge is a type of education. So I want to look at this decolonization and questioning colonisation through knowledge as a form of education.
- establishing workshop ritual plan with my sisters- constellation 1
-meet and talk online every two weeks, on wednesdays at 2pm french time. duration 1-1,5hrs.
-how long will this workshop ritual last, in time?
- rotating notebook in which we write letters to each other. this research is independent from the online talks but can also be brought into the discussion should we wish for it.
- RITUAL FORMAT FOR ONLINE TALK : each take turn to present/read out/sing out a sentence or a few words that resonates with what we’re doing/makes us think of what we’re doing. One person ‘presents’ per meeting, while the others close their eyes listening to what is being said. This is the grounding action, that makes us aware of what we’re about to do for the next hour/hour and a half.
- RITUAL FORMAT FOR NOTEBOOK LETTER-WRITING: -re-read all the previous entrances in the notebook, as a way to ground us, make us aware of what we’re about to do (write our own letter in the notebook)
STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS-
resulting in various ‘collection of thoughts’ texts (to be made into artist book?)
‘Collection of thoughts on ritual as method’ - see link to draft
‘Collection of thoughts on Decoloniality, Decolonizing, Decologizing’ - see link to draft
‘Collection of thoughts on participatory art, community-based art in my practice, in the form of workshops’ - see link to draft