VISUAL ARTIST LISANDRO SURIEL
Today we meet photographer of magic realism and artistic researcher currently working onGhost Island; a documentary of Black imagination of the Atlantic World. Lisandro Suriel, born and raised in Saint Martin (in the Caribbean),and where he is currently based since the start of the pandemic.
This relocation has been a true blessing for my project, as I am able to fully immerse myself into the realms of magic that encompass my work and topic of research about Black Caribbean/ Atlantic identity. Covid-19 has been a tough time for everyone, especially artists, which is why it was an important step for me to come back to the island and really work from home. Working from home has really allowed me to explore what aspects of this island constitute that feeling of home and form part of my identity. Personally, I think that the most important lesson to take from the past year and a half is the meaning of home and how we relate to it.
Prior to the pandemic, I spent time in Bahia, Brazil where I officially started the field research for Ghost Island, after which I went to New Orleans to continue the work. In between I also did a Fellowship with Tilting Axis in Scotland, and gave presentations about Ghost Island and workshops at St. Andrews University, Glasgow School of Art, and Ghent University.
Tell us about your greatest inspirations or influences?
My greatest inspirations are the stories of ghosts and mysteries of nature told by the members of my community, as well as the experiences of magic that come with living in a place that engages with that which we cannot see. This is the foundation of everything I do in my artistic career and the driving force behind my search for Black identity beyond the scope of coloniality we have been taught to confine ourselves to.
You hear about tales of spirits who appear in the guise of unsuspecting people during the day, while at night they shed their skin to reveal their true form: a smokeless ball of fire flying through the sky. It might seem crazy to many to take such tales seriously as a point of research, but as an artist I have to freedom to explore this ancient vampire that ties our ancestral memories to the Ewe lore of Togo and Ghana. The spirits of our ancestors are with us in more ways that we can possibly imagine. It calls for a proper study and excavation of immaterial and unorthodox sources of history. This is why these stories form my greatest source of inspiration.
Tell us a bit about your creative process?
To start, I never really work in a studio setting. It is crucial that the space in which I work contributes to the creative process in ways that are spontaneous and unpredictable. I do not go onto any set knowing what the resulting image will look like; I merely set parameters and a direction for things to flow. I also enjoy working in nature or with elements of nature, because I believe that nature allows for the imagination to breathe. Moreover, since I am making a documentary of imagination, I find it very important to allow space for the image to unfold naturally in symbiosis with the space and subject.
How has the pandemic affected your creativity and how do you see the world changing?
The pandemic has been amazing, in that it forced me to come home and to look within myself for the engagement with ancestrality that I might have been trying to find elsewhere. Moreover, working from home meant that many platforms for sharing and discussion works were starting to take place online. This may or may not have been a boring change of affairs for people living in metropoles and world capitals. However, for someone like me, living on an island where access to many platforms is traditionally very difficult, the pandemic has democratized the creative landscape and opened op doors to many opportunities otherwise unavailable to people like me. The shift to the virtual has in some ways been a blessing for those whom would normally be quite isolated and remain unheard. Hence, my personal goal during the pandemic was to utilize this new age of a virtual world stage as efficiently as possible to give a voice to Ghost Island. In short, my “working from home” has been all about communication and extending Ghost Island’s reach.
Who do you consider to be an icon of our time?
Grace Jones and Naomi Campbell – they are both iconic women who have rendered themselves timeless by their ability to wield beauty. And this might sound quite shallow at first, but I mean this in the most profound way possible. These women have taught through their mere existence that true beauty is not something you look like, but rather something you are. And it is the spirit of beauty that inspires love and the will to live – it is a power that reveals truths and can shake the world in a way that gently reshapes it. True beauty inspires change and acceptance, and commands respect. By the spirit of their beauty, Grace Jones and Naomi Campbell have never asked the world permission to be their true selves; they are instead the Spirit of Beauty incarnate who have captured the gaze and hearts of many. Most importantly the presence of these women asks many of us from across the African Diaspora to look at ourselves through the eyes of timelessness and see the same beauty in our selves. It is this conception of beauty that I try to incorporate into my work; to wield beauty to inspire a rediscovery of self and histories.
What does wellbeing mean to you, and what do you practice?
As a libra, wellbeing encompasses balance and harmony. My work is all about harmonizing with nature and learning from her. Many Black and Indigenous schools of thought speak about the importance of learning from nature, some say that we even came to Earth to learn from Her spirits. Whether you believe in magic or not, this way of thinking about nature allows us to harmonize with both our environment and ourselves on a fundamental level. A healthy sense of magic in life is a critical drive for existence; whether you call it, religion, or love, of happiness; it is something you feel - more than you can think or explain. It is the reason why many artists create or feel inspired in the first place. Consequently, in many ways my work is my life and my spiritual practice.
Anything else you would like to share?
Perhaps important to know, is that my entire artistic research practice is rooted in not knowing about history and ancestry. As a child of the African Diaspora in the Caribbean, my education has been colonial in the sense that we have only ever been educated that as Black people in the Caribbean, our history starts with Christopher Columbus and the advent of Transatlantic slavery. It is my intention to explore Blackness beyond the slave narrative and address an identity beyond that which we have been taught. Western historiography has failed to tell our story; therefore, we cannot rely on it to tell our own history.
For us, there are rarely - if any - records of our past that go beyond colonialism or that are unrelated to the Imperial West. Oftentimes, rather than physical records in a city archive or library, the only remnants of our true history and identity are found in immateriality. And it is this immateriality that I have come to call the Black Imagination. It is an umbrella term for folklore, forgotten or untold stories, oral tales, superstition, and engagements with magical forces of nature that speak to our collective memory of who we once were and where we came from. Hence, I propose that the imaginative lens is arguably the best with which to view how folkloric figures act as an agent in history and animate cultural memory. Ghost Island posits the Black subconscious as a device for reconfiguring collective memory and reclaiming histories.
website: www.lisandrosuriel.com
IG handle: @lisandrosuriel
Portrait of the artist
