Kala Pani - The Crossing

Exhibition Title: Kala Pani – the crossing Dates: 02 May to 25 May 2024

Exhibition Essay:

This is my song of love to the sea and to the journey,
the Odyssey that my seafaring people have not yet transcribed.

-Khal Torabully, 1992.

So many of us are born from the taboo of a crossing. Somewhere through the sickness of a vehicle constantly in motion, pass the phases of the moon that mark the time since departure and the loss of all vision in the blackest of storms we let go the fastness of our heraldry, our caste, our religion and collect what shipwrecked identity was left to us on the shores of a new life. Whatever generation from the original traveller, we are shaped by the memories that survived and the creativity and inventiveness of Torabully’s ‘coral imaginary’.

Kala Pani – the crossing is an imagined landscape of the passage between two identities. The title takes its name from the Hindu taboo of ‘crossing black waters’ that threatened the loss of caste and religion as a result of oceanic migration. It is easy to view this historical taboo as simply superstitious from our moment in history, but its warning is true in many ways that have become the cornerstone of vibrant, inventive creole culture.

The works in this exhibition pay homage to indistinct moments of loss and beauty in the letting go of cultural restraints. Fear, joy, heartache and wonder are also here in this moment of passage, often the courageous first step into an imagined future. My interest in cultural restraints has been long standing but became particularly clear after the birth of my son. Born of a Catholic, English peerage and a Hindu Tamil Indentured heritage, my child is a striking example of the creole.

Much of my thinking on this topic is shaped by Thomas Hylland Eriksen’s 2003 text, Creolization and Creativity in which he describes creativity as far removed from the lone genius of the Romantic tradition and creolization as ‘perhaps the most dynamic and genuinely creative’ cultural identity. An identity that is continuously redefining itself for which he uses the analogy of the sea voyage to describe creole identity as ‘rebuilding the ship at sea’ (Eriksen 2003). The Mauritian poet, Khal Torabully has also been profoundly influential. I identify with his term, ‘coral imaginary’ to describe creole identity in his research on coolitude (from the colonial term ‘Coolies’ given to indentured labourers from East Asia). Torabully adopts the symbolism of coral, a living and layered structure connected to currents, rather than the metaphorical rhizome favoured by influential post-structuralist theorists Deleuze and Guattari, to describe post-colonial creole identity. (Torabully 2012)

Many of the titles in the exhibition are inspired by lines from Torabully’s poetry and tales by Rudyard Kipling whose annual visits to Cape Town are remembered in the preservation of Kipling House in Woolsack drive. Kipling was also a creation of colonial British rule but in a very different way to the decedents of the indentured labour system. His inclusion is perhaps a moment of reflection on my own ancestral crossings that arrived in cabin class or steerage and not bound as a labourer.

Regardless of class, caste, history or religion this exhibition is a landscape of passage. A star haul from the ocean of change that we are all going through. Here, in this imagined space outside the clockworks of time, is the sea.

REFERENCES

Khal Torabully, 2012. ‘When the Indies meet the imaginations of the world’ in Gesine Müller & Ottmar Ette (ed.) Worldwide. Archipelagos of globalization. Archipielagos de la globalización. A Transarea Symposium, Madrid – Frankfurt am Main, Iberoamericana, Vervuert, 2012, p70.

Khal Torabully, 1992. Cale d'Étoiles - Coolitude, Réunion, Editions Azalées. Cargo Hold of Stars - Coolitude translated from the French by Nancy Naomi Carlson, 2021. Seagull Books: London. p108

Thomas Hylland Eriksen, 2003. ‘Creolization and Creativity’ in Global Networks 3. 3 (2003)

223-237. Blackwell and Global Networks Publishing.