Blackwood Gallery, Toronto, Canada
In photography, the term “incident light” refers to both the source emitting the direct light which illuminates a subject, as well as secondary sources which redirect light onto it to reveal unseen details. Incident Light features a group of Middle Eastern and South Asian artists whose works focus on traces of gender and sexuality within various archives from the region. The exhibit questions the authority that nationalist historiographies hold in relation to their subjects through a repositioning of the cultural artifacts from various historical depositories. Building new stories from fragmented knowledge, the exhibition harnesses generative forces that anticipate, foresee and fantasize about what was and could have been.
- Leila Pourtavaf