Welcome to this blog on the art and visual culture of Mauritius. While it is primarily meant as a tool for students to obtain additional information on the module ‘Art in Mauritius’ taught at the MGI, its aim is to go beyond that dimension and become your favourite gateway to the visual arts of Mauritius. Also since there are no academic publications and/or journals dedicated to the subject on the island, this blog aims to fill up that vacuum.
We shall also strive to be as simple and jargon-free as possible to accommodate secondary school students and people from the public at large curious about the visual culture and art of Mauritius.
Why ‘visual culture’? As will be seen in the following posts, the very notion of ‘art’, has a number of unstated assumptions of what is ‘art’ and, by extension, what is not-art. In contemporary theoretical studies these distinctions have become problematic, and it seems preferable to use the the norm-neutral term ‘visual culture‘. Also since the 1960s (broadly coinciding with postmodernism), and the use of the term ‘arts plastiques‘, the term ‘fine arts’ (beaux arts) is now being seen as too restrictive, too elitist and even anachronistic. Visual culture also allows us to look at a wider range of cultural products – tourist art, advertising, architecture, fashion, etc.
We hope to offer incisive and frank discussion that can serve as intellectual stimulation for the artists concerned and for a greater awareness of the type of discourse that prevails in contemporary discussions about art.
