Brendan Fernandes

2011

(buli) continues an exploration of the language-built barriers and codes surrounding ethnicity. The pieces employ Dadaist writing styles that play on repetition and nonsensicality, while referencing wall labels and provenance reports of African objects in museum collections. The installation features text animations that pulse in Morse code patterns; a text poem in vinyl on the gallery walls; and an audio work that mixes rants of gibberish with clips of a classical harpsichord. The assembled work creates an overall minimalist aesthetic with complex moments opening up questions about the colonial histories of the removal and displacement of cultural goods into museum collections.