The Palace We Go to Die In: From Punitive Expeditions to Punitive Exhibitions
A Severe Drapetomania patient
I am Wan wo Layir, a Kulturbanause
This site is an invitation to explore the abyss of the ramblings I call thoughts. I am exploring through Rants, Reviews, and several Projects the impossible conditions of my being.
[un]naming myself
Wan wo Layir, [from Lam'nso meaning "the child without a name"] is a name I have given myself. Indeed, I have given myself this name for many reasons, some of which are apparent to me now and others that become more apparent the more I [mis]use the 'name'. I have chosen to [un]name myself in this way because of the weight and entanglements of my name with colonial structures, but also because I sometimes betray my family when I write, indeed, my name was given to me as a child, and while I might still be confused and infantilized by Whiteness I do not write as a child. There may yet be more noble reasons behind this [re]naming.
I have set for myself the arduous task of dismantling whiteness and constructing a decolonial future which I have chosen to look at as "an infinite succession of presents". Through my writing, I will explore and question -- in the short articles and stories -- my experience of becoming Black, and living within and navigating White-colonial structures. I have therefore decided to first [un]name myself, so that like Herostratus, when I finally -- through an infinite succession of presents -- dismantle the temple of whiteness, I must have written along with those structures myself out of history.
I have also unnamed myself for less honorable reasons. I have a crushing desire to be like, to be seen, I guess one of the reasons I write is to find someone who will know me beyond the categories and strictures of being a son, a brother, or a child. I am always and everywhere this and more. I want to be known by the people that should know me the most but I also do not want to be known. I do not want to offer myself to the heartbreaking reproach of a parent. How do I tell you that I am your grandson but also a radical unapologetic and sometimes confused severe drapetomania patient? How do I tell you that while I crave your warm embrace around my being to hold me tight and close to your heart, I also want to fly out of that embrace? I want to be held tight but not too tight that it shapes my muscles and thoughts and constricts my veins.
I will be rambling along and outside the lines of the following areas of interest:
Decolonial Futurities Black empowerment
Subaltern Studies Critical museum studies Post-Colonial Thought Critical Race Theory Decolonial Feminism Provence Research Restitution and Reparations