Drawing Breath, Notes on Parade Créole documents Felisha Maria’s research process in designing artistic dress for the racialised feminised body in its attempts to claim sovereignty within europeanized space. This text is about emotional drawing processes explored in the presentation of clothing for these absent bodies.
“Felisha’s work is an essayistic inquiry into the possibilities of self-determination for colonized bodies through experimental clothing. For this, she analyzes the work of four women (including herself) and their constant striving to develop resistant practices in order to escape the invasive colonial gaze. At the same time, this striving repeatedly leads to the reproduction of Eurocentric ideals of both body and beauty – thus creating a field of tension which Felisha Maria works through with critical reference to Frantz Fanon and Anna Muthesius.” – Annika Grabold for Cake&Cash
WHERE TO BUY:
Studio Dem, Brooklyn
The Studio Shop, Trinidad&Tobago
Freiraum, Hamburg
‘Eigenkleid Prototype’ Detail. Photo: S.Grigorieva 
‘Drawing Breath’ Publication, 2022. Photo: Insa Kühlcke-Schmoldt 
‘Drawing Breath’ Publication, 2022. Photo: Insa Kühlcke-Schmoldt 
‘When Creole and Spanish Collide’ exhibition view, Alter Markt, Kiel, 2021. Photo: S.Grigorieva 
‘Drawing Breath’ Publication, 2022. Photo: Insa Kühlcke-Schmoldt 
‘Ayesha’ Install, FREIRAUM, 2022. Photo: Benjamin Unterluggauer
PAST EVENTS:
Friday 10th March, 2023
18-21:00
ALICE YARD
Granderson Lab
24 Erthig Road
Port of Spain
Trinidad & Tobago, W.I.
Friday 24th March, 2023
Studio Dem
241 Wythe Ave
Brooklyn
NY 11249
New York
Saturday 27th August, 2022
11-12:30
FREIRAUM
Museum für Kunst&Gewerbe
Steintorplatz
20099 Hamburg
A Reading and Installation take place within the framework of OPEN. Festival of Open Rooms in Hamburg’s Museums. The spaces involved are the Säulenhalle in the Altonaer Museum, the Freiraum in the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe (MK&G), the Zwischenraum in the Museum am Rothenbaum für Künste und Kulturen der Welt (MARKK) and the Torhaus in the Museum der Arbeit. From 25 to 29 August, the aim is to show how the participatory spaces work, how they are used, enlivened, played with and shared, and thus, not least, how they can contribute to the co-creation of urban coexistence.
For information in German, see the MKG website.
Tuesday June 28th, 2022
18-19:30
SÜDLESE literary festival
Cake&Cash’s Grind&Shine Inc.
Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof
Hamburg Harburg
As part of the start-up “Grind&Shine Inc.” founded by Cake&Cash at Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, Felisha Maria is in the Office and reads from her current work Drawing Breath. In the spirit of Grind&Shine’s exploration of topoi of self-realization, Felisha’s work is an essayistic inquiry into the possibilities of self-determination for colonized bodies through experimental clothing. For this, she analyzes the work of four women (including herself) and their constant striving to develop resistant practices in order to escape the invasive colonial gaze. At the same time, this striving repeatedly leads to the reproduction of Eurocentric ideals of both body and beauty – thus creating a field of tension which Felisha Maria works through with critical reference to Frantz Fanon and Anna Muthesius.- Annika Grabold