Shanta Lee Gander’s Multimedia ‘Darkish Goddess’ Exhibition Reclaims…
Hecate is the Greek goddess of magic, the night time, the moon, necromancy. The Morrígan is the Celtic goddess of transformation, witchcraft and battle. Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of sexual love and sweetness. These highly effective females are amongst greater than a dozen depicted — or slightly, reimagined — for the exhibition “Darkish Goddess: An Exploration of the Sacred Female” on the College of Vermont’s Fleming Museum of Artwork.
In large-scale pictures put in across the museum’s second-floor balcony, the goddesses stare straight on the viewer with self-assurance and maybe daring. Even within the serene Marble Court docket beneath, guests would possibly really feel compelled to search for. They need to additionally go up for a better examination and never resist the impulse to go inside.
“Darkish Goddess” is the work of Shanta Lee Gander, a author, photographer, performer and educator who lives close to Brattleboro. Museum textual content explains that she started engaged on the idea six years in the past with a vital inquiry: “Who or what’s the Goddess when she is allowed to misbehave? Who’s the Goddess when she is allowed to increase past bearer of life, nurturer, and all the different packing containers that we confine ladies to inside our society?”
Over numerous picture classes — all outdoor in woodsy locales — Gander accrued a physique of dramatic pictures on this theme. Shot in black and white, the tableaux are generally shadowy or dappled with mild, results that emphasize the topics’ thriller. The costumes, make-up, settings and attitudes, Gander famous in an interview, had been full co-creations along with her fashions.
These shoots had been undoubtedly enjoyable, however they weren’t simply goddess cosplay. The intention of those pictures is to claim female company and to subvert the “male gaze.” The time period, coined by feminist movie theorist Laura Mulvey in 1975, implies that ladies are sometimes offered in visible mediums from a heterosexual male standpoint, thus rendering the feminine a passive object of male want.
The exhibition handily shreds that perspective. As Jamie, the mannequin for “Darkish Aphrodite,” places it in textual content accompanying the picture, “A darkish goddess is a girl who’s empowered, who takes management, who is aware of what she desires.”
“The exhibit is about gaze, being seen, not being seen,” Gander mentioned in an interview. “It is half meditation, half poetry, half snapshot.”
And he or she didn’t cease at pictures. In collaboration with Fleming employees, the exhibition advanced into one thing extra complicated, each conceptually and materially.
Like many museums worldwide, the Fleming has been in a interval of self-examination over its colonialist acquisitions and curatorial biases. In line with its dedication to what it calls “reckonings,” the employees invited Gander to pick objects from the museum’s everlasting assortment that she thought of related to the exhibition’s theme and to put in writing different descriptions of these objects.
Gander went one step additional and imagined “conversations” amongst a few of the chosen objects. Removed from normal perfunctory explanations, her textual content is written as poetry or what she calls “quasi-fiction.” For instance, alongside the sculpture “Head of a Queen Mom,” created centuries in the past by an unknown artist in Benin, her textual content reads partially:
If what’s spoken is blessing or curse,
what if there was no alternative of a constructed utterance.
You do not know about such issues
I used to be stolen and bought and bought and bought and bought then gifted as bride, and my worth goes past the imagined…
A couple of of those items are displayed amongst Gander’s pictures; others are assembled in a big vitrine in an adjoining gallery. This facet of the exhibition is known as “Object-Defied” to problem the objectification of, significantly, objects obtained in colonialist style. Such objectifying is, in spite of everything, an ethnographic variation on the (white, entitled) male gaze.
The exhibition additionally consists of Gander’s “Darkish Goddess: A Quick Movie.” Its quarter-hour of authentic and borrowed footage additional explores “the human gaze, the feminine physique, and what it means to bounce alongside a continuum of sacred and profane,” the Fleming textual content reads.
Whereas “Darkish Goddess” has a female slant, Gander eschews a binary view of id, urging viewers to think about all “who’ve beforehand not been seen,” she writes in museum textual content. “Because it pertains to my work, I hope that it conjures up extra inquiry, questions concerning the different selves which can be a number of layers beneath the floor of a society that categorizes and packing containers.”
To that time, Gander noticed in an interview, one of many people in her pictures doesn’t determine strictly as male or feminine. All her fashions, nevertheless, expressed a sense of reclamation, of taking themselves again, of their expression of a darkish goddess. One in all them, DonnCherie (“Crow Goddess”), additionally advocates embracing the darkish.
“Generally, it’s essential embody the chaos, you want to have the ability to sit with the chaos, not [be] continuously chasing the optimistic, the ‘No, I by no means let these issues get to me.’ No! They get to me. I get offended.”
Viewers can take heed to excerpts of Gander’s interviews along with her fashions in SoundCloud recordings on the museum’s web site. In her introduction to them, the artist expresses the hope that viewers (and listeners) would possibly get in contact with their private model of the darkish goddess.
“As you pay attention, you might drift into your personal ideas about what any of this implies for you,” Gander says. “What’s the darkish goddess for you, and the way would you join it to your heritage or traditions? Have you ever encountered darkish goddesses all of your life and never realized it?”
Possibly the goddess is just an unfettered self, freed from the restrictions imposed by others or by society.
These are heady concepts to pack right into a museum exhibition, however Gander and the Fleming have taken nice measures to light up and show. One useful resource is a good-looking catalog designed by Fleming assistant director Chris Dissinger. It consists of Gander’s pictures, temporary interviews along with her cocreators, pictures of objects from the gathering with Gander’s different texts, essays by UVM professor Emily Bernard and affiliate professor Vicki Brennan, and an intensive interview between the artist and Alice Boone, the Fleming’s curator of schooling and public applications.
Gander and Boone’s dialog, specifically, dives deep into the genesis and evolution of “Darkish Goddess,” in addition to the 2 ladies’s observations about museums, collections and authority.
In a telephone name, Boone famous that Gander had participated in a Fleming symposium final 12 months concerning the repatriation of objects and the way artists would possibly assist with reimagining museums. “I see this as dismantling authority,” she mentioned. “I do not know that we are able to return from this.”
This can be a weak second for museums, Boone acknowledged, however she believes that “we must always lean into it.” As an educator, she works with UVM courses that come to the Fleming. “I discover one of the best ones are when the scholars ask all these questions and knock down a few of the props … of authority. Generally we speak about what we thought we knew, filling in all these questions with inquiries.”
And “inquiry” is Gander’s favourite phrase, Boone mentioned with fun. Many guests to the exhibition wish to know what “darkish” means, she mentioned: “That is an inquiry Shanta desires you to ask. What I believe she’s making an attempt to get at is, it leads you to proper shadow work. It leaves you eager to know extra.”
The next Q&A with Shanta Lee Gander was edited for readability and size.
With a BA and MBA diploma underneath your belt, you accomplished an MFA in poetry and nonfiction at Vermont Faculty of Effective Arts in 2021. I learn that one of many tasks was to put in writing a memoir and that you just took a nontraditional method to it. One in all your advisers mentioned you’re writing jazz. Is that memoir completed?
Sure, I completed the memoir. I got here out [of the program] with 4 manuscripts. Two books of poetry: Ghettoclaustrophobia, which was revealed final 12 months, and Black Metamorphosis [forthcoming]. The fourth is predicated on analysis I began doing on speaking to Black artists about how transference occurs — literary epigenetics. That is very a lot primarily based on the scientific time period and consists of the surroundings of your ancestors. I took that concept from my thesis.
In a digital Vermont Humanities dialogue final 12 months, you talked about that once you had been rising up in Hartford, Conn., some folks deemed you “not Black sufficient.” You additionally mentioned, “How persons are going to label issues, that is not my drawback.” Given your inquiries about id, may you communicate to this?
My concepts about creativity are continuously shape-shifting. I’ve by no means felt like I belonged. Ultimately I made a decision to say, “I am simply the toy that does not match within the toy field.” I am not making an attempt to make this a triumph narrative; it is simply, I am not going to associate with the group.
In a evaluation of Ghettoclaustrophobia for Seven Days final 12 months, Skye Jackson wrote, “Gander celebrates the facility of Black creativity as an agent of change and light-weight.” Might you say extra about that?
It isn’t simply Black, nevertheless it’s creativity — to recollect one’s entry to creativeness. Some folks name this [period] a Black renaissance. I believe that is harmful. Individuals have been doing inventive issues all alongside, even once they did not have a reputation for it, like Harlem Renaissance. It is our birthright to find our inventive selves.
You carried out the Lucy Terry Prince poem “Bars Battle” for the Brattleboro Phrases Path in 2017. I learn that you just additionally lecture on Prince for Vermont Humanities. Is that also taking place?
Sure, I nonetheless give lectures for each Vermont and New Hampshire Humanities.
In 2020, the Vermont Arts Council granted you the Arthur Williams Award for Meritorious Service to the Arts. Speak about what that meant to you.
I used to be so shocked and happy! For thus a few years, I by no means received something. [The award] reinvigorates and reinspires; it is such a terrific accolade.
Earlier than we get into the Fleming exhibit, I wish to ask you about your images apply as a complete, over time. The portfolios in your web site span simple nature photographs to posed tableaux that recommend invented narratives. And but most of them appear to have a type of studied consideration. Are you able to speak about what you search for in picture making usually?
After I was [traveling] in India, my digital camera was with me in all places. I’ve additionally been an individual who says I will take a drive and see what I can discover. In some instances, it’s extremely deliberate, particularly on the lookout for deserted locations; I will convey my digital camera tools and spend a complete day.
How will we present the world ourselves by way of what we see by way of our lens? I do not thoughts being photographed, however I might slightly be on the opposite aspect.
In August 2021, you interviewed Shin Yu Pai for Ms. Journal. Such as you, she is each poet and photographer. You requested her, “Do you discover that these totally different varieties discuss to one another?” I am excited about your reply to that query.
Sure, they discuss to one another. For instance, as a dancer/mover, after I’m writing, particularly poetry — if the web page is a stage, how do you give the attention a relaxation, a pause? They encourage one another. Whereas I used to be engaged on the movie for “Darkish Goddess,” I used to be additionally engaged on a few manuscripts for poetry. These rhythms went into the pacing [of the film].
I am additionally excited about how your personal narrative technique modifications once you transfer between visuals and language, apart from the plain variations in mediums.
My first language was writing. It was a really personal, sacred factor. The extra I found that I may put these items into the world, I’ve thought loads about poetics and the way that might inform life. How does it transfer? What’s the rhythm? How do you consider phrases and breath?
Actually good poetry will get inside you. When I attempt to write a extremely good poem — and I can not be the choose of that — I hope it arouses the senses, reminds folks of [other] issues.
Clearly, images is about pictures, and poetry is about phrases. But each in their very own methods can inform tales. In numerous settings, you have had loads to say about storytelling. I’m wondering for those who may say a bit of extra for our readers. Why is storytelling necessary; why is it highly effective?
Storytelling, alongside poetry — it is our earliest type of communication. It is actually previous. The entire concept of sitting round a hearth and passing down tales. It begins with orality; even in the way in which we inform one another tales, let’s have witnesses who will be within the creation.
There’s one thing about storytelling that invitations us to discover what scares us.
What would you say to somebody who hides their tales, maybe out of shyness or not feeling worthy or simply by no means being inspired?
Good query. What I say to a gaggle of school children is to ask questions, particularly of themselves. Take into consideration their energy to have interaction with issues they’re encountering. In highschool media research, [I say], as a human being, how do you study to suppose critically and use your creativeness as a part of that? Additionally to not take themselves too severely and that something will be materials [for writing] — something.
With writing, it isn’t about submitting it [for publication]. It simply began with me — that I wished somebody to listen to me, and that somebody was a web page.
Let’s segue to “Darkish Goddess: An Exploration of the Sacred Female.” It is described partially as an “exploration of the human gaze, the feminine physique, and what it means to bounce alongside a continuum of sacred and profane.” What has your personal exploration concerned? Might you elaborate on this pursuit conceptually?
I lastly have a solution in spite of everything these years — I went again to my undergraduate main [in women, gender and sexuality].
About seven years in the past, I began desirous about goddesses — maternal, good, benevolent — the methods we field ladies. Kali is a extremely attention-grabbing goddess in India. What if we explored ladies who ate their kids, who killed folks, who defied even gender classes?
Within the fall of 2020, Caighla Manchester, one in every of my fashions/collaborators, stored pushing me to do one other picture shoot. We went to a web site that had water. I checked out all the photographs later, and it impressed me to select up the digital camera once more. I put out a name. It was a catalyst to place into motion “Darkish Goddess.”
The primary iteration on the Southern Vermont Artwork Middle [in fall 2021] was simply pictures. The Fleming invited me to have an exhibition and in addition incorporate objects from their archives. I knew I wished to develop the exhibition, and the Fleming has been exploring repatriation of a Benin bronze. So, it was a mixture of objects in collections after which desirous about how they interacted with my pictures.
The gaze was necessary — how did the gaze grow to be developed within the first place?
The Fleming allowed me to put in writing descriptions of the objects. The best way I used the curatorial labels was a manner of disrupting the gaze. The exhibition catalog calls this factor [the objects and their alternative descriptions] “Object-Defied.”
How would you describe this exhibition to somebody who hasn’t seen the images?
They’re a fruits, on the floor, of a sure type of ethnography. Additionally, there’s an unflinching, unapologetic, direct gaze [from the women]. In loads of the pictures, the person is staring proper at you.
The pictures are black and white; [the shoot] came about all exterior, in nature. The ladies have self-created who they wished to be within the pictures, for instance, She … Killer of Dangerous Males; Hecate; the Crow Goddess. The viewer will encounter these totally different personas — a mixture of images and cultural anthropology.
These had been collaborative; we spent a month or extra speaking about who they suppose the darkish goddess is. Interviews with the ladies are added to the exhibition.
This mission is not finished — I will be capturing extra collaborators this 12 months.
Who’re these ladies?
All of them are folks I’ve identified a very long time — in a single case since age 13. They are a vary of people.
How had been their costumes conceived? Does every signify a selected cultural narrative?
It was a shared imaginative and prescient. 100{0741ef6f90bb47a750648aaedb39299e5c0344912de6ad344111c59f16f85724} of them was a back-and-forth. As soon as it grew to become a mission, there was loads of desirous about costumes and make-up.
The place did you shoot these scenes?
In Vermont and New Hampshire.
Why did you select to shoot in black and white?
I felt like shade could be distracting. I wished no distractions however to play with shadow, the dappling of sunshine.
I might like to notice for readers that a few of the fashions are white, some Black. Presumably the “Darkish” within the title does not check with pores and skin shade or ethnicity.
Completely not. And I am in talks proper now to even problem the gendered facet of it. One of many “goddesses” within the present walks the road between genders.
What would you want viewers to know about or take away from this exhibit?
I’d love for folks to consider how seeing may be very educated. Eyes, very very similar to the tongue, salivate once they see one thing they need. How are we educated to see, and the way does which have dangerous and even harmful implications?
Do you suppose that this exploration has a selected significance for the time we’re residing in?
Sure, undoubtedly. One of many issues I discovered attention-grabbing concerning the “nice resignation” — it is unhappy that it took folks so lengthy to take themselves again, to say what they don’t seem to be prepared to do. Nevertheless it’s additionally a celebration, inspiring folks to take themselves again, giving themselves permission.
I additionally suppose it is necessary to embrace essentially the most taboo issues, to take a threat, to be militant.
What’s subsequent for you?
I might like to see “Darkish Goddess” proceed to develop. I plan to make one other installment of the movie. It’s going to go someplace else in New England.