- Venue
- Toynbee Studios
- Date
- Wednesday, May 13, 2009
- Address
- 28 Commercial Street E1 6AB
- Location
New Orleans-based artist José Torres Tama will be presenting a talk at Toynbee Studios as part of a series of events organised in collaboration with Rajni Shah and in partnership with Roehampton University, Artsadmin, Bluecoat, and Live Art Development Agency. In September 2006, a year after Hurricane Katrina hit, Torres Tama performed a series of improvised rituals as an act of mourning in the devastated neighbourhood of the Lower 9th, invoking a character informed by Yoruba religious practices in a ritual to channel the pain and suffering of this terrain. The photographic documentation of this performance, Lower 9th Ritual of Mourning, will serve as a starting-point for a discussion around performing identity and the politics of race in the Obama era.
