What can a passport reveal about a migratory life ? At the heart of Looking for Lucille is an artist ’ s quest to piece together the fragments of her maternal grandmother ’ s life . For Farihah Aliyah Shah , it is a life worthy of an archive . Shah is part of a generation of Canadians born to Guyanese parents and grandparents who migrated to Canada — a country that , since the 1970s , emerged as a significant diasporic space for Guyanese citizens . Within these multiple generational migrations , much of what marks the archive of a life — family photos , mementos , documents — gets left behind or lost . Shah laments the absence of documentation about her Guyanese-born grandmother ’ s life , one that gives way to a void in her own identity . In turn , the artist gathers a selection of photographs of her grandmother ’ s birthplace in Victoria Village , Guyana , along with images depicting the landscape and ecology of the country and small needlepoint works referencing Guyana ’ s moniker as the land of many waters . To construct this evolving archive , Shah positions her grandmother , Mrs . D . Pieters ’ passport at the heart of it — namely its cover , inside-cover page denoting the bearer ’ s rights , the opening ID page , and a page featuring two passport portraits that show her at various points in her life . The latter two pages bear stamps dated 1974 and 1980 , alluding to at least two occasions Mrs . Pieters returned to Guyana . With the passport as its central archival object , Shah treats Looking for Lucille as a cartographer would — mapping the migration arc of her grandmother and bridging the geographical and emotional terrain between both of their diasporic journeys .
Looking for Lucille holds symbolic environmental practices rooted in West African Ifa beliefs . One distinct connection is Orisha Oko , an agricultural spirit with ties to Obi divination through obi abata ( kola nut ) usage . Kola nuts do not grow outside of Africa , therefore enslaved Africans in the Americas substituted coconut for kola nuts , which ultimately became the instrument for ‘ New World ’ Obi divination seen in African Diasporic religions such as Santeria , Comfa , and Obeah .
— Rhamira Corbett Museum and Cultural Heritage Studies , Art History
Farihah Aliyah Shah , Looking for Lucille , 2017-2022 , photographic prints , archival materials , textiles , installation dimensions variable . Courtesy of the artist . Photo credit : Ivan Peñafiel .
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