No Cars Go © Kriss Munsya from The Eraser
Kriss Munsya's ongoing photographic series The Eraser uses stylized tableaus and long-form poetic captions to reflect, erase, and resolve longstanding trauma.
At first glance, Kriss Munsya's highly stylized narrative portraits might come across as fashion editorials. A family basking in bright LA-feeling light, their faces obscured by flowers. A figure lying across a mid-century modern cabinet. A closeup of a face bedazzled in reflective circles. A car broken down in a parking lot, yet lit immaculately and also covered in elaborate floral arrangements. But there's a deeper story here. One seeped in pain, doubt, guilt, and an ongoing burden of racism – and trying to erase it.
Kriss Munsya was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo and moved to Belgium at an early age where he felt othered by the white community, yet developed a sense of guilt for having a limited number of Black friends, and never dating Black women. Munsya channels these feelings into colorful pastiches that borrow and remix his memories, pairing them with long-form part-biographical, part-fiction narrative captions (which we’ve included below,) written in the third person to help him process it all.
A longtime fan of his work on Instagram, I connected with Munsya amidst his two latest exhibitions – up through the end of February in Vancouver, BC at Pendulum Gallery and online at Oarbt.
Jon Feinstein in conversation with Kriss Munsya
The Love Below © Kriss Munsya
The Love Below.
Highway Reflection, The Eraser, 2020.
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He was road tripping with his parents and his older sister to Germany that summer. They stopped at a really low-budget hotel on the highway. He was 6 years old. He remembers he couldn’t sleep that night because of the sound of the highway. The next day, his father and him played soccer in the parking lot while his sister and mom were hanging out on the grass.
Suddenly the ball went a little closer to the fences of the parking lot, close to the highway.
On the other side of the highway, he could see another highway hotel. But that one was a fancy one. He could see rich white families in the pool.
He remembers the patio was full of flowers. He was really jealous, and maybe a bit mad at his parents for staying in that low-budget one.
He wanted to be on the other side of the highway.
It took him years to understand that he was exactly where he was supposed to be.
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Now that he’s older, he’s trying to reclaim the past he never had. He’s trying to change his memories in order to change his future.
But digging the past might bring up unexpected things.
Jon Feinstein: Flowers are a recurring theme in many of your images. What draws you to them as a prop and metaphor?
Kriss Munsya: I decided to use the flowers because they play a key part in one of my past memories. And at the same time, flowers, in my opinion, represent the beginning and also the end of things. They are really symbolic
Feinstein: Beyond the connection to Thom York’s album of the same title, what's the story behind the title "The Eraser"?
Munsya: The Eraser is the story of someone who would like to erase their memory in order to change the future. It also is inspired by the movie Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind and the Pink Floyd album the Dark Side of The Moon
Any Colour You Like © Kriss Munsya
That night, he came back home after seeing his group of friends. Mostly white people. He remembers what they said that night. A lot of racist bullshits. It was more than usual, and he felt literally sick coming back home.
He entered the bathroom, it was dark. The light was broken… He couldn’t see his reflection in the mirror. The mirror was black. And for few seconds, he actually hoped he disappeared. He was afraid to see what was in the mirror. Someone he always tried to hide from others, but mostly from himself.
In the dark, the mirror was shattered. Revealing multiple reflections of himself, multiple truths about who he was. He always knew he was multiple, complex. This complexion that his environment never wanted to accept.
He never understood why people around him never wanted to see him entirely. See the black man, but also the indie rock fan, the soccer player, the artist, the friend, the lover, the immigrant, the clown, the ghost. He always wondered what they were seeing when looking at him.
He realized years after that what they wanted to see in him, was themselves. He turned into the mirror of their own limitations. He became their expansion. He became their strength and let them take his energy and vision away from him.
The only moment he was truly himself was in that dark bathroom, in front of the black mirror. Multiple faces, multiple realities, multiple outcomes.
He remembered his parents. When they moved to Belgium in the late 80’s. He remembered how they were acting different in front of white people… It was they way to survive a world that was openly violent with them.
Now that he is older, he tries to reclaim the past he never had to change his future. He tries to repopulate his memory with new memories and new experiences. But memory is a tricky one. There might be glitches and bugs, and digging in the past always brings unexpected things
Feinstein: In many of your photos, at least one person has their head or recognizable features obscured - either by flowers, masks, curtains, a potted plant.I feel like this ties into the "eraser" idea/ the removal of identity, but I'd like to hear it in your words...can you discuss? Also, who are they and what’s your relationship to them?
Munsya: The people in the photos are not recognizable because it’s easier for the audience to identify when there’s no face. The people in the photos are friends, friends of friends and models hired just for the shoot
Feinstein: Congrats on your recent exhibitions! Has bringing this work to wider audiences changed or influenced how you think about it?
Munsya: Not really actually. I just discovered a part of the work that I never experienced before… The promotion!
Baby Baby © Kriss Munsya
Baby Baby.
Scarlet Ribbons - The Eraser, 2020.
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One night, he was going to bed. And when he passed in front of his sister’s room, he could hear her cry. She was punished by his parents for coming back late from a friend’s. He remembers his sister was crying often. He was never punished the same. He always could do things that his sisters couldn’t. He thought he was special, he thought he deserved what he got.
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Growing up as a boy in that family brought him his fair load of privileges. He couldn’t see them until late, really late. It reminded him of a story, the story of the Scarlet Ribbons.
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Scarlet Ribbons is a story that happened years and years ago. A little girl was praying with her dad on her bed before sleeping. She was asking for some scarlet ribbons for her hair. Her dad left her bedroom and she was sure that he was on his way to the shop to get the ribbons and she would have them in the morning. Her dad left and never returned.
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He feels like his sisters are still expecting those ribbons, quietly in their rooms. He feels like he received all those ribbons that he never deserved. Now it’s time to give them back…
Feinstein: Much of your work comes from a very personal place - the feeling of not measuring up, the complexity of gender and cultural identity. Has making this work helped you come to terms with those feelings?
Munsya: Yeah, this project has been like therapy. It has helped me to put words and feelings and experiences that my brain had almost wiped out in order to survive. I feel way lighter now.
Feinstein: This work and the narrative approach hovers between real childhood memories and fictions. Why is it important/ interesting for you to sit within that in/between space?
Munsya: I think it's important to me because I get more artistic freedom. It allows my dreams to come true, and my traumas to disappear a little.
Feinstein: Many (if not all) of these images are about racism, oppressive gender expectations, and trauma, yet they are also beautiful, colorful, stylized, and whimsical.
Munsya: I think mixing two really different feelings together is very rich in terms of sensations. Also, you remember that experience way better and way longer.
Tonight The Streets Are Ours © Kriss Munsya
He was excited that day. It was the first apartment he was visiting since he moved from Brussels to Madrid to study. The apartment was in a neighborhood called Moncloa.
He had the appointment at 5pm so he wanted to be on time and showed up at 4:59pm.
The owner opened the door, took a look at him from head to toes and then slammed the door on his face after saying "No Negros". He was 24.
He left, and he remembers feeling lost in the street. He didn’t know where to go next, what to do next. Would it be the same situation everywhere? Should he go back to Brussels?
And for some reason, he remembered what happened almost 20 years before that.
He was a small kid. And with his mom, they went visiting houses. His parents at the time wanted to buy a house. He remembers be annoyed to follow his mom in different neighborhoods just to seek apartments.
But he remembered also people closing doors at her mom’s face. He couldn’t understand exactly what was happening but he could remember the face of his mother just after the door was closed on her face. She was lost and confused... Exactly like him at this precise moment in a street in Madrid.
Now that he’s older he wants to reclaim that past he never had. He’s trying to erase his traumatic memory with his own fantasies in order to change his future. But memory is a tricky one… There might be some glitches and bugs.
And starting to dig the past always brings up unexpected things.
Feinstein: Does your background in design and filmmaking influence your photography?
Munsya: Yes, I think so. I have an intuitive way of working in general, and I use all the skills I have.
Feinstein: Every single image of yours has so many layers - I imagine that a lot goes into planning, pre-visualizing, constructing, etc. Can you tell me a bit about your process?
Munsya: I’m a messy person so the organization is not really my forte. But in general, for this project, the first part was the introspection… finding the personal material to translate into visuals. Then sketching and staging in my head. Answering the why and try to put myself in the viewers’ perspective. Then putting a team, then shoot. And for every photo, there’s at least 3 days of editing
Taking Over © Kriss Munsya
Domestic Attraction - The Eraser, 2020.
The Eraser is the story of change. He grew up in African family in a predominantly white environment. But since he's really young, his friends, people around him, and even sometimes his family made very clear that he wasn't black enough, or too white. He was a black kid trying to survive his own insecurities and problems. and he had that pressure of being someone that he wasn't. Later, when he was a teenager, girls that he wanted to date repeatedly said to him that he was a bounty, white inside and black outside. That statement was one of the most hurtful thing he had to hear in his life, He was failing at being himself.
It clearly changed his relationship with black women, He always thought he was failing them. Trying to avoid them as much as possible.
Now that he's older he wants to reclaim that past he never had. He's trying to populate his memory with people of his own to be accepted by the community. But memory is a tricky one. There might be some glitches and bugs. And starting to dig the past always brings up unexpected things.
Feinstein: One thing that has fascinated me about your work since I first got familiar with it a while ago is the personal, often traumatic depth your captions provide. Written in the third person, I understand that the "he" in the photos is you - can you speak to your decision to word them in the third person?
Munsya: Using the third person was pretty helpful actually. It helped me to not face directly the trauma I had to revisit, and imagining it was another person. It was less brutal in this way I guess. And it also allows me to tweak some details with less guilt as I’m not talking directly about myself. Even though 95% of what is written is accurate.
Feinstein: Can you tell me a bit about your creative process in writing them?
Munsya: I always wanted to be a poet, and since I’m really young I like to write poetry and songs. That’s why music is so important to me. For this project, my writing was pretty automatic and intuitive, every text took me maximum 5-10 minutes to write.
Feinstein: What do you hope viewers will come away with after seeing your work?
Munsya: I hope I will give the viewers chills, and bring them with me to navigate really different feelings. And for now, it’s the reaction people have so I’m really proud.
Hot Summer © Kriss Munsya
Highway Reflection, The Eraser, 2020.
-
He was road tripping with his parents and his older sister to Germany that summer. They stopped at a really low budget hotel on the highway. He was 6 years old. He remembers he couldn’t sleep that night because of the sound of the highway. The next day, his father and him played soccer in the parking lot while his sister and mom were hanging out on the grass.
Suddenly the ball went a little closer to the fences of the parking lot, close to the highway.
On the other side of the highway, he could see another highway hotel. But that one was a fancy one. He could see rich white families in the pool.
He remembers the patio was full of flowers. He was really jealous, and maybe a bit mad at his parents for staying in that low budget one.
He wanted to be on the other side of the highway.
It took him years to understand that he was exactly where he was supposed to be.
-
Now that he’s older, he’s trying to reclaim the past he never had. He’s trying to change his memories in order to change his future.
But digging the past might bring up unexpected things.