In this project, each performance critiques Western self-care while offering absurd solutions to imagine more radical forms of self-care. The Instagram residency will open with the idea of Eurocentric happiness that maintains the status quo of a colonialist patriarchal society, as theorized by Sara Ahmed. The artists will then observe how anger, an emotion usually perceived as negative, can instead be a form of care. This research is based on the text The Uses of Anger by Audre Lorde. The project will conclude with the theory of shame. Eat, prey, lust will focus on the different ways in which shame can be re-tamed to lead to auto-erotic desires, as written by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Paul B. Preciado.
Gaslighting Joy is a collaboration between artists Sophie-Anne Bélisle and Fadwa Bouziane. In the past, they have worked on projects integrating art into public space, notably for the 1-800-POESIE project at the 16th Biennale nationale de sculpture contemporaine in Trois-Rivières and État/Transmutation, an installation created as part of the 5th edition of Art Souterrain in Montreal. By integrating artistic micro-interventions into their daily lives, they create spaces for redefining happiness that resist the norms imposed by patriarchal capitalism.
For more information: https://www.lacentrale.org/en/programmation/eat-prey-lust/
