London-Based Artist Explores Cultural Identity in Exhibition, Lecture

An exhibition and lecture by renowned London-based visual artist Shiraz Bayjoo will kick off the 45th anniversary season of the Greenlease Gallery and the 60th anniversary season of the Visiting Scholar Lecture on Friday, Aug. 28 at Rockhurst University.

Bayjoo will deliver a lecture titled “A Land of Extraordinary Quarantines: Mauritius and Its Post-Colonial Identities” at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 28, in the Arrupe Hall auditorium on the Rockhurst campus.

Bayjoo will discuss his research into the many layers of colonial legacies and their role in shaping the identities of those who inhabit the small Indian Ocean island of his native Mauritius. Through his lecture, Bayjoo seeks to shed light upon broader themes of identity formation and the role power relations play upon the construction of Mauritian identities.

An opening reception for the exhibit of Bayjoo’s photographic works in Rockhurst’s Greenlease Gallery will follow the lecture, as will a screening of his film “Ile de France.” The film and Bayjoo’s companion exhibition, “Land of Extraordinary Quarantines,” both explore how the identities and people of Mauritius, an island uninhabited until the 17th century, can be traced almost exclusively to the exploits of European colonists. During French then British colonial rule, Mauritius was pivotal to the slave trade as a strategic trading port, bringing Chinese and Arab merchants and trafficking slaves from India, East Africa and Madagascar.

Bayjoo earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in fine arts from the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, in 2001. He specializes in painting, video and photography. He was the 2011 artist-in-residence at Whitechapel Gallery in London and his work has been exhibited at the Tate Gallery and the Institute for International Visual Arts in London.

To register attendance for the lecture, call 816-501-4828. Parking is available in the North Parking Garage, 52nd Street and Troost Avenue, and in all campus lots, even those marked as restricted, accessed through the campus entrance at 54th Street and Troost. See rockhurst.edu/map for more information.