The things I cannot say

Friday, 24 to Sunday, 26 November 2023, 5:30 - 9pm
24 Erthig Rd, Belmont

The things I cannot say

Mahrinna Shareef

‘The things I cannot say’ is a digital media exhibition at Granderson Lab in Belmont in collaboration with North Eleven, where Marinna Shareef explores her personal relationship with enmeshment, specifically the cycle some indo-Caribbean families can develop with their children, reflecting on strictness, lack of control and boundaries. The work deep dives into wanting to make a change and ‘stop the cycle’, something we often hear from children when addressing their parents when coming into adulthood. What does entail when our own brains wont let us remember our trauma? Shareef tries to ‘break the cycle,’ in her own way by performing a sort of funeral service for the things she cannot say, and says her goodbyes to this sort of hesitance. She simultaneously performs this Caribbean ritual for her grandmother in dealing with her death, and reflects on how she dealt with both trying to manage remembering her trauma while losing a motherly figure.

This work was created during Marinna Shareef’s The Caribbean Digital Scholarship Collective x Alice Yard’s Virtual Artist Residency in 2022. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to make this exhibition possible.