Tau Lewis: Sparkle's Map Home

For ‘Sparkle's Map Home’, Tau Lewis harnesses a broad spectrum of found and recycled textiles to imagine a latent ancestral otherworld. Re-envisioning Gairloch Gardens as a scene from the cosmos, Lewis reflects on the possibilities of outer space as a locus of both a Black past and a Black future, envisioning an “ancestral otherworld” where the possibilities of Blackness are unbound. Throughout this exhibition labour-intensive sculptural portraits are constructed with hand-sewing, quilting, and assemblage techniques. Lewis explores memory, agency, and individual and collective trauma and healing.

The work ‘Sparkle & Sparkle’s map home’, seats ‘Sparkle’ in a chair facing a quilted map. Composed of a woven collection of textiles, assorted objects and found family photographs, the map offers no colonial signposts, directions or borders to situate home. Similarly, another sculpture titled ‘The Octonaut’ features remnants of a globe, embodying Lewis’ response the violent geographies that seek to understand and contain Black lives.