PSYCHOPOMP: Apnavi Makanji

Apnavi Makanji’s second solo exhibition at TARQ, PSYCHOPOMP, comes at a pivotal time in the artist’s life and practice. Featuring their drawings, collages, mixed media sculptures and a video, the works in the show are about post-colonial extractivist histories, queering the future, human connection and navigating the current Phallocratic Heterotopia.

Click here to read the exhibition catalogue

Daphne was conceived and filmed in three of the ponds at the Jardin Botanique de Genève. It raises questions on the blurred boundaries and vicissitudes of life occurring naturally within a deliberate human construct. Where does the human imprint end and where does nature take over and is human intervention necessary thereafter?

In an attempt to tamper with the viewer’s perception, the work is shot in a manner that deliberately tries to circumvent objects that imply human intervention, thereby creating the artifice of a wild waterscape. However, traces of human intervention can never be completely erased and when glimpses of these manifest, they break the atemporal quality of the work.

“And my friend told me ‘Death is like taking off a tight shoe’
And when I stopped looking for me, I was able to find you”. 

⁃Kae Tempest

 

The body is such a beautiful and awkward vessel. It holds a repository of all our experiences. Trauma and joy both lie together, finding intimacy within our flesh and bones. 

My body feels heavy. Weary and weighted by memories of being othered. As a child, I refused to answer their question: “Are you a boy or a girl?”

I was subjected to a beating for my silence. That old chestnut has plagued me my entire life. I didn’t know then, as a 7-year-old and I do not know now, how to answer that question. How does one explain the painful dichotomy between body and being?

I could only express who I was through the masculine mannerisms of my body assigned female at birth. Being a boy felt natural, my body didn’t reflect that. The impostor syndrome is strong. 

My body is loaded with the stifled trauma of a brutal metamorphosis at puberty. My body is trapped within the thick grip of shame that chokes a gestating truth. 
The impostor syndrome is deeply entrenched.

  
I have spent half a life believing that I was a freak of nature. Constantly seeking positive regard from my partners while concealing my trans identity. I yearned to be seen beyond my physical self. 

 

At present, I understand that to be seen, I need to embody my queer self. I am blessed to be surrounded by people who love me hard enough for me to break through the powerful conditioning of cis-hetero/homonormativity. 

There are no freaks in nature. Only a queer, fragile nature that must be embraced and loved. 

I’d like to express my deepest gratitude to my father Nalin, for his unconditional support. 

Softness is not weakness. My future is without binaries. 

For Halima (1956-2022)

 

- Apnavi Makanji, Geneva 2022