Sorry for Real

2015 
HD video with sound
16 min 58 sec
Courtesy the artist and Goodman Gallery (South Africa) 

In Sorry for Real, Tabita Rezaire questions the function of narratives of reconciliation in relation to structures of oppression. The video starts with an incoming call from “the Western World.” A hollow, automated voice calls out the crimes of Western culture in the form of an apology. Historical injustices such as slavery, colonialism, and the stealing of land and resources are acknowledged. But what is the actual purpose of asking for forgiveness when the culture of exploitation is continued through contemporary capitalism, white supremacy, and hetero-patriarchy? The work invites us to reflect on the power dynamics created by symbolic gestures of reconciliation, such as apologies, and whom they really benefit. Rezaire humorously portrays the false sense of progress and feelings of pre-empted anger created by the mechanisms of apology and forgiveness, encouraging us instead to imagine real processes of change.  

Tabita Rezaire (b. 1989, France) is an artist-healer-seeker. Her cross-dimensional practice envisions network sciences—organic, electronic, and spiritual—as healing technologies that serve the shift towards heart consciousness. Embracing digital, corporeal, and ancestral memory, she digs into scientific imaginaries and mystical realms to tackle the colonial wounds and energetic imbalances that affect the songs of our body-mind-spirits. Tabita is based near Cayenne in French Guiana. 

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