Nuit Blanche: Thamilini & Yalini Jothilingam

As part of Nuit Blanche 2014, SAVAC is proud to present Goddess-entranced, a performative, mixed media installation by Thamilini & Yalini Jothilingam, exploring postcolonial and post-migratory haunts.  Using the space of a freight elevator in the 401 Richmond building, the artists capture a moment suspended between the temporal entanglements of time and place.

Goddess-entranced is a haunted sphere where ruptured lives unfold. Through the debris of myths crawls a goddess with her suitcases.
She pauses at the borders, in trance.
From one colony to another, from being colonized to the state of being a refugee, the past follows her like a haunted shadow.
Like a web, it surrounds.
It imprisons.
It tangles and untangles.
In Goddess-entranced, the presence of absence becomes tangible—through the body, sounds of fragmented narratives, and material traces.
At the intersection of art and anthropology, this performative installation invokes indelible memories of a repressed history—a past that is inherently present.

Thamilini Jothilingam is a Sri Lankan-born, Toronto-based multidisciplinary artist and researcher. Her works stem from the intersection of art and anthropology with a focus on gender, forced migration, subaltern identities, and postcolonialism. She holds a BA (Hons) in Social Anthropology from the University of Kent, UK and a MFA in Documentary Media from Ryerson University, Canada. Her works have been exhibited in Colombo, London, New York and Toronto.

Yalini Jothilingam is a performer and writer currently based in Toronto. Her works revolve around major themes of political and gendered violence, migration, and body politics. She holds an iBA (Hons) in Anthropology from York University, Canada and spent a year abroad in Uppsala University, Sweden. She has performed in Colombo and Toronto, and toured around South India with a Tamil-Nadu based theatre troupe ‘Manalmagudi.’