Connect with us

Events & Entertainment

SIRIUS ARTS EXHIBITION: Thaís Muniz

Published

3 months ago

on

Thaís Muniz
Rites of Care, Curse & ComfortThaís Muniz is a Brazilian Irish artist with African heritage. She examines representations of ‘otherness’ through ideas of blackness, displacement and memory in a postcolonial context, and explores embodied and experiential art-making processes and outcomes. Her prints, collages, textile pieces, and performances combine archival materials and personal memorabilia, storytelling and symbology. This exhibition features a selection of new, recreated and past works that engage transgenerational trauma, manifestations of racism, the objectification of womanhood by the male gaze and the erasure of ancestral knowledge systems.

Rites of Care, Curse & Comfort is Muniz’s first solo show. The exhibition is produced by SIRIUS and curated by Miguel Amado, director, with production support provided by Cork Printmakers.


LAUNCH EVENT

Thaís Muniz in Conversation with Miguel Amado

SIRIUS
Saturday, 13 July
3-5pm
Free; no booking required

Thaís Muniz and Miguel Amado discuss Muniz’s hybrid cultural identity, her artistic and intellectual references, the connections between spirituality and collective healing in her practice, and the role of fictioning in this exhibition.

Accessibility Note
Our building has accessibility limitations. There are three steps to the front door and a temporary wheelchair ramp is available upon request. Our toilets are accessed via stairs and are not open to visitors. Public toilets are beside the Titanic Experience, by The Promenade.
Thaís Muniz, Darling, Don’t Turn Your Back On Me (still), 2021. Courtesy of the artist
Thaís Muniz considers the long-lasting impacts, whether material or psychological, of colonialism on racialised communities. She comments: “I examine the various layers of power and intergenerational trauma linking cosmologies of Brazil, West and Central Africa, and Ireland as tools for both collective healing. I have been creating distinct yet related works that contemplate the relationship between inherited and acquired identities, memory and omitted histories.”

A key motif is the inverted triangle, which Muniz puts forward as a visualisation of the transatlantic trade of enslaved people – representing Europe, West Africa and the Americas – as well as her own autobiography, in terms of her Brazilian origins, African ancestry and Irish citizenship. The circle is another recurrent motif, and represents ori – referring to spiritual intuition and destiny among the Yoruba, a West African ethnic group with whom Muniz self-identifies.

Central to the exhibition is New Atlantic Triangulations Flag (2022), consisting of triangular and circular shapes printed on hanging fabric pieces. The work formally mimics a traditional national flag, but the designed emblem is intended to represent motion, whether metaphorically linking dispersed populations or referring specifically to the movements of persons undermining borders.

Muniz comments: “Brazil, West and Central Africa, and Ireland: each side of this triangulation has in common colonial oppression, cultural erasure and forced migration, as well as cosmologies that embrace intuitive alignment with nature. I have been connecting these three territories through my body as a living archive, mapping possibilities of existing and reimagining realities through refusal, dreaming, inward love and personal magic.”

In several collages, Muniz brings together archival materials, photographs, fabric threads and found objects to narrate the lives of figures that the typical Eurocentric viewpoint anonymises or overlooks, as often happens in state and legal apparatuses. For example, in the diptych Leide Dai (2022–24), she depicts a reality where a woman facing deportation manages to secure citizenship in her country of residence. The title alludes to both the woman’s name and Princess Diana, subtly pointing to British politics and mechanisms of migratory control and isolationism.

Muniz blends references to Yoruban, Brazilian or Irish histories and mythology, for instance the Celtic legend of the island of Hy-Brasil or the ancient alphabet known as Ogham, to meditate on her hybrid cultural identity. In the print Ori Axe Ogham (2024), ori evokes her African heritage; axe is the Brazillian word for ori; and Ogham is an ancient Irish alphabet. Muniz uses the slanted dashes of Ogham typography to spell out the words ‘axe’ and ‘ori’. The abstract geometric diagram can be understood as both an illustration of the movement of the artist’s body and a mapping of dispersed populations.


Thaís Muniz is an artist based in Dublin. She participated in exhibitions and performances at institutions such as the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin; Pallas Projects/Studios, Dublin; and Edinburgh Printmakers. She is a researcher in Art + Research Collaboration at Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design + Technology. Her residencies include Cork Printmakers and Axis Ballymun, Dublin. Her awards include the Agility Award from the Arts Council.
 
Thaís Muniz. Source: the artist
Share this…
Related Topics:
Continue Reading
Advertisement

Trending Locally