A Black person with long dark braids, backgrounded by grass, trees and an overgrown wall. Their eyes are closed, mouth slightly open, and their clothes are soaking wet. From the top right corner, another person's arm pours water from a grey bucket on
A Black person mid-stride during a performance in a cobbled stone building. Braids cover their face. Seated in the background are four audience members watching them, and one taking a photo.
A close-up shot of the performance from the side, showing the performer's right arm. Their clothes are wet and there are strands of kanekalon braiding hair stuck to their arm
A shot of the performer from the side, showing them mid-movement. They are whipping their braids around and crawling across the cobbles, leaving a moistened trail behind them. There are four audience members seated in the background, three watching t
Another shot of the performer from the side. They are crawling across the cobbles and whipping their braids around.
A close-up shot of the performer on the ground. Their braids are drawn across the cobbles and their forehead touches the ground.
A final shot of the performer. They are crouched in front of an old, peeling wall, with one hand placed on it and one hand on the ground.

Limitancy

May 2024

Image credit: Manuel Vason

Limitancy is a new performance work by Diana Bamimeke, developed for the CARE SHARE EXPRESS Residency at Live Art Ireland (LAI) and first staged at LAI’s Performance Showcase in May 2024. The work presents a series of solo endurance-based actions, incorporating the ground, hair, water, dirt, walls and stone as live co-creating phenomena. Born out of the artist’s own frustrations with Immigration Service Delivery, formerly the Irish Naturalisation & Immigration Service, Limitancy contests the intrusion of the state & the interests of capital in the making and understanding of the global majority. It represents an aspect of Bamimeke’s necessarily critical artistic practice & research, presenting physical actions of refusal and resistance as an intervention in Ireland’s carceral treatment of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees of colour.

Donations can be made here to the Basandja Coalition for the Rights of Indigenous People & Local Communities in eastern Congo, the Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland (MASI) and to the Ele Elna Elak Campaign in Gaza.