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We Live in Silence (Chapters 1-7)

Kudzanai Chiurai
We Live in Silence (Chapters 1-7), 2017
Single-channel film
Variable Dimensions

We Live in Silence", forms the third and final installment in a three-part series that began with "Revelations" (2011) and continued with "Genesis [Je n'isi isi]" (2016). Taken as a whole, this ambitious body of work disrupts what the artist refers to as 'colonial futures', creating 'counter-memories' within his images to contest dominant colonial narratives. Taking Mauritian filmmaker Med Hondo's critically-acclaimed 1967 drama "Soleil Ô" as its starting point, responding, in particular, to the colonial mindset that forms as a result of white-washing and cultural erasure, the film responds to the colonial mindset that African migrants to Europe are to think, speak and understand language like their colonisers. Chiurai dissects the film through similitude, recreating scenes intercut with visual references from popular culture, religion and art historical sources to stage alternative colonial histories and futures. The single-channel film from which this photographic essay derives also re-positioned the female role in recent struggle histories - recasting the lead character as a woman in the black liberation narrative to challenge the gender-bias inherent to such narratives