Veiled Revelry
2017
Most carnivals have originated out of plight. Whether it is celebrating the only day off during slavery; overindulging before the food deteriorates or runs out at the end of winter causing famine; or pre lent indulgence simply because one would be denied it for a number of days. The video installation is an interrogation of some of the absurdities and dualities that both historical and present carnivals hold.
Veiled Revelry 1 features a figure, painted white, wearing an all-white sculptural headdress, solemnly interacting with an over laden black table of food. Through the use of contrasting colours, black and white, good and evil, light and darkness, it interrogates dichotomies that we so often forget in the midst of celebrating.
The installation, although about carnivals, is ironically, void of the exuberant colour traditionally seen at carnivals. This is an attempt to peel back the façade and remind us of the suffering that lead to us to the celebration.
The sculptural, paper headdress, filled with beads, umbrellas, feathers, a Ferris wheel, bunting, a gramophone/trumpet horn, jewels and animal mask, is an amalgamation of references to carnivals found around the world. The paper references the ephemerality of these celebrations and what they are meant to represent; The celebrations disappear as quickly as the communities came together and everyone goes back to the individual hardships