As part of an UK government funded Creative Entrepreneurship Programme for the Chagossian community in the UK and Mauritius, Imiloa and Odd Athaëna are lauching an exhibition, Ble Kouler Lakaz at Lakaz Flanbwayan.
Ble Kouler Lakaz follows a series of workshops led by Odd Athaëna during which a group of Chagossian women had the opportunity to share their experience, cultural practices, and traditional know-how.
The objective was to help empower the participants to develop their creative entrepreneurial and leadership skill sets through the method of gathering, preserving, and interpreting their voices and memories of their people and communities via visual and traditional craft representations.
“The exhibition will also combine the images of my @chagossiansofmanchester workshops as well as highlights of work of Matter Out of Place.”
Audrey Albert, known as Odd Athaëna, is a Mauritian-Chagossian maker, artist, and photographer. Her research-led practice enables her to consider and investigate themes of national identity, collective memory, displacement, tradition, and denial. Born in Mauritius with Chagossian origins, she studied Political Science with a specialisation in Media and Communication at the University of Mauritius from 2009 – 2013. She is currently based in Manchester after studying photography at the Manchester School of Art at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) between 2015 – 2018.
Audrey is currently working on Chagossians of Manchester (CoM) after having been selected to be part of the Future Fires 2020 programme at Contact. CoM is a socially engaged art project by and for the forcefully displaced Chagossian community currently living in Wythenshawe. Chagossians of Manchester consist of 4 intergenerational creative workshops, which will culminate in a celebratory Chagos Day.
