Artist Shiraz Bayjoo In Conversation with Michael McMillan Shiraz Bayjoo

As part of the Open Studio & Residency with Iniva, artsit Shiraz Bayjoo will be speaking about his work with writer, dramatist, artist/curator Michael McMillan and showing the completed film Ile de France.

The conversation will explore the artist’s practice and his interest in the history of his birthplace, Mauritius. Linking the stories of yesterday to the reality of the world today in relation to culture, life, economy and the politics of Mauritian society.

This is a free event, book you place via:

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The non-narrative film explores the history of Mauritius and its legacy of being ruled by different colonial powers. The British and the French governments both at different times governed the small island. The island historically was perceived to be a strategic space for the trade, this trade involved slaves as well as commercial products.

The film’s imagery captures the essence of colonial rule and its continued presence in Mauritius society and culture.

Shiraz Bayjoo (b. 1980, Mauritius) is a London-based artist currently working in the Indian Ocean region, whose practice spans painting, photography, and video. Bayjoo explores the territory between abstraction and images of a metaphorical nature from cartographic, mythic and religious traditions. Using multiple layers of translucent patterns and marks, a loose abstract landscape is presented. Images are broken down and re-explored, offering to the viewer compositions that are often culturally or politically emotive, subtle and removed from their literal context. The video works push further the idea of shared identity and experience.

Originally from Mauritius, Bayjoo studied at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff. Bayjoo was artist in residence at Whitechapel Gallery during 2011. In the two past years he has exhibited with Tate Britain and the Institute for International Visual Arts (Iniva) in Shoreditch.

Shiraz lives and works in London and Mauritius.

Michael McMillan is a writer, dramatist, artist/curator and scholar of Vincentian migrant parentage whose recent plays includes: Master Juba (2006) and a new translation of Bertolt Brecht’s The Good Person of Sezuan (Trenchtown) (2010 & 2012). His curatorial work includes: The West Indian Front Room (Geffrye Museum 2005-06), The Beauty Shop (198 Contemporary Arts & Learning 2008) The Front Room: Migrant Aesthetics in the Home (Black Dog Publishing 2009), The Waiting Room (Stories & Journeys, Gwynedd Museum & Art Gallery, Bangor 2012), I Miss My Mum’s Cooking (Who More Sci-Fi Than Us, KAdE Kunsthal, Amersfoort 2012) My Hair: Black Hair Culture, Style & Politics (Origins of the Afro Comb, Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology 2013). He has an Arts Doctorate from Middlesex Univ. 2010 and is currently an Associate Lecturer in Cultural & Historical Studies at London College of Fashion (UAL) as well as Associate Researcher RAS at UAL.