A Plot, A Scandal (2023)

Ligia Lewis filmed A Plot, A scandal in the historic quarters of Rimini, Italy, a site the artist sees as upholding “Eurocentric ideals of (white) Man’s dominion over the land.” One recurring aspect of the landscape, the towering cypress trees in ordered rows, stands as an example. The film opens with the sonic resonance of the church bell portrayed later as a towering monument, pointing to Christian ideals that served as both a precursor to the Enlightenment and bedfellow in maintaining this hierarchical order. Weaving together multiple historical epics with political and mythical narratives, the work uses ideas of spectacle and scandal to address the continued dispossession of “Europe’s Others,” as Lewis describes them. [Overview courtesy of The Whitney Museum]