A Plot / A Scandal

A dance between affect and embodiment, seeing and being seen, Ligia Lewis’s new work, A Plot/A Scandal, constructs the poetics of refusal at the edges of representation. It is a scene in the making where excitement for that which does not fit might find its place.

In Lewis’s own words, “A plot exposed, a foul deed enacted, invites scandal. In the spirit of revolution or romantic musings, scandals provoke an imagining of the impossible. Utopian or mundane, how might scandal reveal what lies unwittingly close to our fantasies? And how does it expose where society places its limits? If life is a scandal waiting to be plotted, how do we position ourselves within its matrix? Immoral and lacking propriety, scandals are incidents where fantasy and pleasure take center stage.”

Guided by the questions of whom this pleasure is for and at what expense, Lewis’s newest plot explores the stage where scandals abound by weaving together historical, anecdotal, political, and mythical narratives—ranging from the Enlightenment thinker John Locke, 16th-century Santo Domingo slave rebellion leader Maria Olofa (Wolofa), Cuban artist and revolutionary José Aponte, and Lewis’s great-grandmother, a figure Lewis turns to within her plot as a guide of resistance.