Outwith by Kialy Tihngang

Kialy Tihngang is a multidisciplinary artist based in Glasgow who draws on her British- Cameroonian identity to explore Blackness, queerness, Britishness, and the crushing structural oppressions that surround these personal themes. For ‘Outwith’, Tihngang creates a reflective space in which to view two films that are centred around bodies of water. Both films draw on Tihngang’s research into colonial European misrepresentation, extraction, and demonisation of West African cultural practices, intentionally using processes of misremembering, misreading, and romanticisation to reimagine histories and speculate on futures. By combining the dark humour of Nollywood with the aesthetics of retrofuturism, she satirises the visual language of advertisements aimed at mass Western audiences.

‘For Those In Peril On The Sea’ follows a group of enslaved Africans who have jumped overboard a slave ship. In the water they encounter the master’s tools, European maritime technology such as periscopes and diving suits. With these materials they build fetishes for traditional African water deities. These take the form of wearable, 2-metre-tall periscope suits. They invoke the deities’ power and protection by ritualistically wearing the suits and are able to re-cross the Atlantic underwater and return home.

The term ‘fir gorma’, which is translated from ancient Irish chronicles as ‘blue men’, is thought by historians and folklorists to refer to enslaved North African people who were brought to Ireland and the Scottish Hebrides by Vikings. In ‘fir gorma’ (the 2024 duo show) for Glasgow International Festival, Josie KO was in conversation with Kialy Tihngang, drawing on their contrasting and converging explorations into Black British histories and identities, producing a duo exhibition incorporating film and sculpture. ‘fir gorma’ (the research project) is an ongoing research project created by Josie KO in 2020. Using archival records that date the presence of Black people to precolonial 9th century Scotland, in ‘Neyinka and the Silver Gong’ Tihngang imagines how some ‘blue men’ escaped captivity, fled to an uncharted Scottish island, and formed a maroon clan. Tihngang weaves a rich lore and material culture for this clan, reflecting on how this displaced community might have constructed their own Scottish identity.

Tihngang experiences constant questioning of her existence in Scotland, which intensifies her nebulous sense of national identity. ‘Neyinka and the Silver Gong’ is being screened concurrently at Jupiter Artland in Edinburgh, the dual showing reflecting on her identity as a Black English woman living in Scotland.