KATASI

Katasi constructs nostalgic tableaus of intimate social moments using digital collage, placing beautiful people having A Good Time in the foreground of architecturally magnificent spaces. Her whimsical works exhibit playfulness and joy on the surface, with an underlying theme of reclaimed ownership of space. This theme is represented through her reimagination of archival imagery, taking people out of their original image context and placing them in spaces that were typically exclusionary at that time.

As a first-generation Ugandan-Filipina American, this series puts an emphasis on Katasi’s constant rediscovery of and connection to her blackness. It also taps into her love for 70’s/80’s nostalgia, funk, disco, and Black American film and tv. The people in each piece elicit a feeling of familiarity to herself, her family, and women who paved the way for her to exist and thrive. Through her composition, she crafts a new layer of familiarity that can be felt between each person and the space they are in, making each collage feel like an actual photograph.