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Existential Boner is a work about obsessions. Obsessions related to desires, sexuality, the body, and gender identity. Mahalia Taje Giotto has gone through several phases of physical transformation – from writing on their skin as a child, to tattoos when they came of age, to eating disorders as an adolescent – until the process of gender affirmation in 2020.
This identity journey lies at the heart of their work, and is embedded in a constant interplay of overlapping images to express an incessant inner movement. Spray-painted lettering, added to photographs, becomes for Giotto a tool for resignifying, emphasizing, and – sometimes – censoring their own body, in a radical and spontaneous gesture in which risk-taking becomes strength.
Through a sculptural approach to the photographic medium – understood as a reflection of bodily changes – the artist explores their own desires and the fluidity of their identity, while providing visibility to the trans community to which they belong.
From mid-September through December, SPBH Space will host an overwhelming representation of Mahalia Taje Giotto’s body. The install will symbolize the queer body’s legitimate reappropriation of space in a city that still witnesses episodes of transphobia and homophobia, and where minorities are still denied their rights and visibility.
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The programme, to be presented between September and November 2023 by SPBH Space, will focus on the politics related to transfeminist bodies, ranging from gender identity to post-colonial policies, from the body as a tool for re-signifying urban spaces to the body as a territory of political conflict.
Involving local and international realities, the goal is to build a dialogue that enables a greater understanding of the practices and policies through which societies regulate bodies, and what embodied practices offer for emancipatory movements.
Programme dates:
Opening + Tattoo Session
14 September, 7-9pm
Performance by Alessandra Canini
19 October, 7-9pm
Workshop with Micha Stella
4-5 November
Finissage + DJ set by Mahalia Taje Giotto
18 November
In collaboration with:
Grafiche Veneziane
Quattrox4
Ècal
Graduated from the MA in Photography at ECAL in June 2022, Mahalia Giotto aka Taje (they/them, 1992) is a visual artist based in Lausanne. After studying International Relations, they turned to photography in 2017. Drawn to androgyny from a very young age, they came out as trans and chose to identify as non-binary in their late twenties. Their work revolves mostly around gender, sexualities and desires, challenging the binary norms of our patriarchal system.
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