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Artist Statement
The word “authenticity” suggests a claim to stability, cohesion and truth. But like most concept words, the so-called centre remains elusive and debatable, and meaning can no more point to a singular fact than a giraffe’s neck can point to an ant. My current work represents an investigation into the concept of authenticity, as an ideological construct that both dominant and subordinate cultures use to their own ends. It is a word that shapes cultural experience, and thus also shapes concepts and formation of identity.
The Safari-as-authentic-African-experience provides an evocative metaphor for the inscription of culture onto my own sense of identity (or, more specifically, my sense of identities). As a Goan who has never set foot in India much less Goa, and as a Goan-Kenyan who has lived the greater portion of his life in Canada, having left Kenya at a young age, and currently residing in New York, I wonder what to call myself? I experience my identities as informed by all the places I have lived, and the cultures to which I have connections, threads that my family has striven to maintain while living in a country that is neither their birthplace nor mine. Yet the cultures of Kenya and India continue to represent my family’s recognition of these as our cultural roots. As a result, I find myself caught between a habituated respect for the cultural traditions of my ancestors, and an understanding of Kenyan culture from the perspective of a "native" (somebody who was born and lived in the country) as well as from the point of view of a Westerner and, therefore, a de facto tourist. These investigations into culture have yielded several important questions that guide my work, not the least of which is: who am I?