Absa Art Hot Spot
Empowering African fine arts
Fit Me In
Octaptych
220 x 420 mm each
2019
Kavinash Thomoo
Photographic Print on Matt Paper with Lamination on Aluminium Board
Limited Edition of 3
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Artist Statement
Paranoia
Fit Me In explores the emotion of being under surveillance through (digitalised) classification in contemporary bureaucracies and its inherent dehumanisation process. Advanced digital technologies have increased automatic methods of individual surveillance; the full implication of which the individual has yet comprehend.
Through the inscription of symbols of digital identification (e.g. from the smart ID card implemented in Mauritius) on the artist’s body, the work questions the normalisation of surveillance practices of contemporary establishments.
While the possibility of interference by myriad agencies into individuals’ private data have come to be questioned, the work focuses towards the familiarity of self-exposure/policing through the amount of personal information that is willingly given via birth certificate, identification cards, registration forms, biometric data for attendance/access and computer-mediated communications among others. The body is at the centre of such identification practices. The artist highlights the body as questions the notion of identification through biometric data.
Despite limited choices and increasing loss of control, it should be asked whether it is even possible to exist outside the ritual of objectification and re-subjectification if one wants to be a member of the modern world?
Artist Bio
Kavinash Thomoo
1983 . Mauritius
Kavinash Thomoo is a Mauritian artist born 1983, who holds a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from the University of Mauritius. Kavinash obtained a scholarship for his MA Fine Art from Cambridge School of Art (ARU, UK). He has more than ten years of teaching experience in the secondary school education system, in the field of Art and Design. Thomoo works as a part-time lecturer at the School of Fine Arts, MGI/University of Mauritius, Open University of Mauritius, the Fashion and Design Institute, University of Technology and the Mauritius Institute of Education. Kavinash's portfolio is comprised of over 50 local and international exhibitions in England, France, Seychelles, South Africa, Reunion, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Ivory Coast, Thailand, India, Canada, United States, Saudi Arabia... In 2015, he participated in the prestigious 56th Venice Biennale in Italy. His expertise ranges across traditional media like drawing and painting to new media art (installation, photography, and video). His research and experimentation revolves around themes such as social activism and auto-destructive art. Inspiration for a majority of his works stems from self- reflexivity, human psychology and sociopolitical issues.