Lefa Le by Lerato Shadi
Curated by BHMF
In collaboration with Villa Romana, SACI Gallery
Palazzo dei Cartelloni (Via Sant'Antonino 11, Firenze)
Opening Wednesday February 6th, 6pm

Nell'ambito della quarta edizione del Black History Month, Florence Studio Arts College International presenta Lefa Le, un'installazione site-specific di Lerato Shadi che indaga questioni di alfabetizzazione visiva e decolonizzazione dei cannoni dell’interpretazione.

As part of the fourth edition of Black History Month Florence Studio Arts College International presents a site specific installation by Lerato Shadi that engages questions of visual literacy and the de-colonialization of canonical lenses of interpretation. The work’s experiential theatricality is undercut with celebratory meditation intended to unsettle the viewer’s expectations and assumptions. Inviting the viewer behind the curtain the work becomes a vacuous performative space riddled with “Black feminist fugitivity”1. Composed of two dialectical neon signs the work is flanked by a 2018 performance based video Re Maotwana in collaboration with choreographer Sello Pesa. In keeping with the theme of the 2019 edition of BHMF, Adagio the installation invites an attentive and reflective viewership to contemplate the complexities of historical amnesia and inverted paradigms.
Text by BHMF
1 Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Spill: Scenes of Black Femminist Fugitivity 2016, Duke University Press