Performative Screenings #48: Tabita Rezaire

INTERLUDE CUM(UNION) TERRITORY

Interlude Cum(union) Territory envisions a study of information and communication technologies (ICT), exploring African divination systems, fungi underworld, water and ancestor communication in the face of the Internet, in order to (re)think our information conduits. Embracing the idea that ICT acts as a mirror of the organic world, capable of healing or poisoning depending on its usage and users, INTERLUDE CUM(UNION) TERRITORY investigates the cybernetics spaces where the organic, technologic and spiritual worlds connect. How can we use biological or esoteric systems to fuel technological process of information, control and governance? Overcoming the organism/spirit/device dichotomies, this work explores spiritual connections as communication networks and the possibilities of decolonial technologies.

Tabita Rezaire (b.1989, Paris) is a French - of Guyanese and Danish descent - video artist, health-tech-politics practitioner, doula and Kemetic/Kundalini Yoga teacher based in Johannesburg. She holds a Bachelor in Economics (Paris) and a Master in Artist Moving Image from Central Saint Martins College (London). Rezaire?s practices unearth the possibilities of decolonial healing through the politics of technology. Navigating architectures of power - online and offline - her work tackles the pervasive matrix of coloniality and its affects on identity, technology, sexuality, health and spirituality. Through screen interfaces, her digital healing activism offers substitute readings to dominant narratives decentering occidental authority, while her energy streams remind us to resist, (re)connect, remember. Rezaire is a founding member of the artist group NTU, half of the duo Malaxa, and mother of the energy house SENEB.
In 2017, she presented her first solo show Exotic Trade at the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg. Artsy declared her among the ?emerging artists to watch for in 2017?, Artnet among the ?international Black artists of 2016?, and True Africa amid the ?top opinion makers of the African continent in 2015?. Rezaire has shown her work internationally – National Gallery of Denmark, Berlin Biennale, Tate Modern London, Museum of Modern Art Paris, MoCADA NY, The Broad LA – and presented her work on numerous panels – Het Nieuwe Institut Rotterdam, Royal Academy The Hague, Kunsthalle Bern, National Gallery Harare, Cairotronica Cairo, Fakugezi Digital Art Africa Johannesburg. She has curated screenings at the Institute of Contemporary Art London, led spiritual technology workshops worldwide and has her writing published by Intellect books.
Rezaire lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa.