Shanti Des Fours is an interdisciplinary artist based in Mullumbimby. Her multifaceted practice delves into themes of identity, personal histories, beliefs, and perception, exploring the complexities of self and memory.
Shanti's recent project, "Stories I’ve Been Told," is inspired by her memories of growing up on the fringes of an alternative religious community in the Northern Rivers. This unique upbringing, caught between two contrasting cultures, left her grappling with questions of identity and belonging. Through her art, Shanti interrogates the beliefs, culture, and history that have shaped her and questions whether they were ever truly her own.
This series features self-portrait photographs in which the artist reenacts half-remembered rituals from her past. These images present a fragmented and undefined self, often obscured, leaving remnants of costumes and paraphernalia from her past.
Through her artistic process, Shanti examines how her identity has been shaped by performative acts of spirituality. Her works highlight the tension between the earthly and the transcendent, questioning the body’s role in this dichotomy. “In our world, the first teaching was ‘I am not my body.’, bodily identification was seen as a barrier to spirituality. And sex, in particular, was the rope that bound us to our bodies.”
The artist’s incorporeal evocations point to her experiences of problematic embodiedness and femaleness in a faith community that viewed women and sexuality as antithetical to spirituality. By photographing herself, Shanti defiantly fixes her fugitive personhood in place. The resulting images though, like memories, remain unclear, fragmented, and uncertain.