FRAGMENTED FRONTS: Catalysti Annual Exhibition 2022

The artists, curators, and organisers of this exhibition have something in common: being institutionally clubbed in with uniformising titles such as “people of colour” or “minorities”. The idea of this exhibition is not merely to give visibility to a selection of “minority” artists—as in less visible to whom? Minority to which majority?—but to broadly ask them to share imaginaries of the sociopolitical identities they carry with them, identities more fluid and hybrid than any label can account for. We often urge ourselves to keep a united front against white supremacy. I ask myself, has there ever been a united front? What is unity without acknowledging differences but a fragile illusion of solidarity that shatters the second you find yourself oppressed by someone who shares your skin tone or your geographical whereabouts, but is miles away from where you’re ideologically situated? This line of inquiry keeps me from transplanting these rich bodies of work and knowledge into homogenising contexts that bend them until they lose a part of themselves to fit. The artists of ‘Fragmented Fronts’ connect geographies with stories lived or imagined; challenge our perception of identity and tradition through feminine practises of storytelling; offer poignant reflections on notions of desire, emotional depth, and complexities of healing and unlearning in the absence of representation and community; and explore issues and ideas spanning broad spectrums of social life: from race and class to social memory and interpersonal dynamics.