SCOUSE REPUBLIC

‘me and this land have many secrets together…’ – Kiara Mohamed Amin.

Tucked behind a little vintage thrift shop down Seel Street, you’ll find a charmingly lit one-room gallery. Last month, OUTPUT was home to SCOUSE REPUBLIC – a transformative exhibition by talented local artist Kiara Mohamed Amin. A tenderly curated exhibition consisting of a short film, vibrant mural and ancestral altar, SCOUSE REPUBLIC concentrated on the recovery of holistic wellbeing through ancestral communication and the secrets of sustenance contained in their voices within the land.

Kiara Mohamed Amin is a softly-spoken Somali, queer and trans artist with daffodil tattoos that gently vine his neck. Living and working in Liverpool, his practice encompasses a wide range of mediums including filmmaking, poetry, painting, and artisanal handicrafting. In a pamphlet dedicated to the exhibition he defines his artistic ethos as a vision that ‘works towards Black liberation and Black dreaming,’ and talks about his calling to create work that is ‘anti-colonial, anti-capitalist and anti-cis-hetero-normative.’ After stumbling across each other on Twitter through a mutual, I was curious to hear about SCOUSE REPUBLIC and after seeing some stunning stills, I decided that I’d like to experience his latest exhibition in person. After my two-hour train journey up to Liverpool, Kiara greeted me, beaming, in a lavender tank top, aubergine jacket and lilac socks.

Gently bespectacled and with the calming voice of an art dad, I enjoy lightly chatting with Kiara as we weave our way towards OUTPUT. From my initial questions I begin to gather that SCOUSE REPUBLIC is actually an intimate eavesdrop into his spiritual practices as a Somali nomad. Cultural speakers for the lands they find themselves on, he explains that Somali nomads act as intercessors, communicating on behalf of the land and the people living on it. Kiara tells me about the conversations he has been having with the ancestors tied to Liverpool, a city that formed the backbone of the British slave trade—some 1.5 million enslaved Africans were forcibly brought to the country through its docks between 1700 and 1807. He credits Panashe Chigumadzi’s These Bones Will Rise Again for introducing him to the idea of ancestral spirits communicating with their descendants through the land - a major theme running throughout the exhibition.

‘Unintentionally all of my work has been about the Black ancestral history of Liverpool, alongside echoes of my life. I've come to believe that the spirit of the ancestors who've been thrown overboard have found themselves bound to this land. One of the slaves' owners - a Liverpool mayor, William Gregson - has been known to have more than 9,000 slave deaths and I believe some of those ancestors are here in Liverpool, feeding into the revolution and the reckoning that's to come for Liverpool with her slave history. I come from a lineage of Somali nomads, listening to the land and being its loudspeaker is just a continuation of my ancestral purpose and I seem to have embodied that same relationship with Scouse-land too.’ - Kiara’s note from SCOUSE REPUBLIC

Upon entering the exhibition I am greeted by a little altar with incense and a curious pale green neon light running the perimeter of the ceiling. The exhibition feels curiously ethereal; to enter feels almost like trespassing. A vibrant pink mural beside a red and white mushroom and deep green foliage catches my attention – its tiny ancestral figures dancing across the pink wall. Beanbags line the side of the room to my right, placed in front of a projector where a short captioned film is looping. I grab a beanbag and Kiara kindly leaves me to take in the exhibition alone.

The short film begins with a hazy sense of mundane routine; intrusive scenes of X-ray scans cut in between shots of hospital waiting rooms, a weary voice speaks of the quiet, eroding nature of constant medical procedures. ‘Another appointment another hospital/Aware but asleep.’ Later when I ask Kiara about the hospital appointment he explains how he almost died due to major organ failure during the pandemic. The numbing and repetitive trauma depicts only the beginning of a journey. However, we are quickly transported from beige waiting room walls to psychedelic montages of grass moving in clockwise rotations. Inverted colour palettes flit across the screen and the shifting textures usher in disrupted images; a telephone pole with a distorted beam signals a hallucinatory tone distinctly broken from reality.

SCOUSE REPUBLIC makes itself apparent as a film reclaiming the power of self-determination via a land that has historically controlled the autonomy of Black people through institutional violence. Kiara explains in his artist's note that he ‘started meditating to deal with PTSD, general anxiety and depression. I would go to the parks around Liverpool to do this and I felt deeply held and comforted by the spirit of the land.’

‘Their bones in this land, bound to this and

The gates opened up and I stepped in

a dialogue between the ancestors and the land

the land heeded the ancestors call and shared their secrets with me

the ancestors said ‘siphon their energy’

The narrator's voice describes only feeling like he’s able to breathe beside the trees. It is through a reconnection to nature that this story of healing unfolds, accompanied by stunning images; inverted clips of a heron (the Liverpuddlian symbol) stalking amidst lush pastel lilac shrubs. Faded clips of Somali women chanting naming ceremonies are transposed over images of self-reflection in front of a lake. The chants in the background are Somali cultural songs for newborns that proclaim what the child will grow to become in the future and the characteristics they will develop. Mohamed Amin takes the viewer on a journey in inversion; trauma and nationality are turned inside out in order to discover new possibilities for healing.

‘Who do I dare to become

How to return and become’

These images of re-definition and escape through nature and ancestral guidance finally come to an arc with an inverted image of Kiara dancing, the passive voice in the beginning completely subverted into a jubilant image of movement and self-expression in his home. Like the heron, his image is inverted, his existence no longer passive. As he thanks and acknowledges the ancestors his aim of ‘taking the viewer on a journey through medical and personal trauma towards radical possibilities for healing’ is almost complete.

The mural that decorates the wall next to the film continues the theme of holistic wellbeing, this time leaning on cave mural traditions which focus on the healing benefits associated with psychedelic, hallucinogenic medicinal practices.

‘Entheogens… induce alterations in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition, or behaviour for the purposes of engendering spiritual development or otherwise in sacred contexts. Indigenous people use entheogens to connect to their ancestors in times of healing, guidance or just needing to connect.’

A background of forest green and bubblegum pink gives the mural an air of innocence. The white and red Amanita Muscaria mushroom radiates a simplistic and idyllic sense of peacefulness. Four yellow daffodils adorn the left side of the mural above a drum, denoting Kiara and each one of his children. ‘I’ve been pregnant three times,’ he tells me softly when I ask about their symbolism. The mural is inspired by caves and features simple-formed figures with psilocybin growing from their bodies. The figures here represent the ancestors, and they are painted lively and animated in dance, care-free and unburdened in their simplicity. Their simple forms are given dimensionality by white brushstrokes forming the structure of their bones and hair, to beautiful effect. The mural then becomes a circle of lineage complete with motifs of wholistic connection and spiritual healing.

If radicality is to be understood as an act of subversion one of the most striking messages within SCOUSE REPUBLIC is the way British land, the historic source of colonial violence can be used to siphon life, energy, care, and growth for the descendants of those it has enacted violence against. Kiara explains, ‘I'm in direct contact with ancestors who were wanting to comfort me. I got courage from them to keep going, to keep making art and to keep dreaming.’

I attempt to engage with the last part of the exhibit and write a letter to my ancestors but I struggle with my own belief. I’ve always loved the idea of being able to communicate with my ancestral family but a westernised empirical doubt holds me back from truly allowing myself to connect. How would I be able to know if they’re real? I scribble a letter that’s more questions than conversation and fold it into the bowl.

The lasting message from the exhibit, ironically, isn’t anything within the small green-lit room but from Kiara himself. It’s a purple offering plate he hands me over dinner that will later become the centre of my daily routine as I begin to reconnect with my own ancestors. Tentatively at first, and then fully in the most fulfilling and beautiful of ways. ‘Ubuntu’, Kiara says as he hands it to me with a smile, explaining the Kenyan philosophy he’s painted in black around the rim of their plate. He doesn’t know it but he answers my doubt; ‘we are because you are.’

SCOUSE REPUBLIC was shown from March 10th -April 10th, 2022 at OUTPUT gallery and has since finished its run but is available to view online here. You can follow Kiara Mohamed Amin here and here.