Tarcisio Cataldi
Tarcisio Cataldi is a Black Brazilian designer and artist based in Tio'tia:ke/Montreal. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Graphic Design and is a second-year MDes student at Concordia University. Being committed to Black-driven narratives with the lens of Afrofuturism, his research practice is concerned with the design and construction of flags, in particular, their symbolic meanings and values, and their materiality and relation to humans and culture. He currently works as a designer for Obx Laboratory for Experimental New Media, Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace and Abundant Intelligences Research Program at the Indigenous Futures Research Centre.
Project
Speculative Vexillology: Imagining Black Futures Through Flags
tarcisiocataldi@gmail.com
Website
https://bit.ly/tarcisio-cataldi
Statement
As a Black artist and designer, I explore digital and physical realms. I am inspired by my Brazilian heritage and situatedness being a Black man navigating urban life. My interests lie in exploring how graphic symbols influence, construct, surround, and dictate the society that embraces us.
My goal as an artist is to understand how Black people can empower themselves with the tools to claim their right to tell their own stories and share a collective and ancestral memory. Having this inquiry as the starting point of my research practice, my work is expressed through self-publications, digital and physical flags, data visualizations, websites, and other media. All of them are representations of the communities I belong to and the cultures that help shape my identity. I see all of those as powerful objects of speculation for a future grounded in our perspectives, our relationship with each other and nature, and the plurality of our stories.
Through my work, I want to create a space where people can observe the past, imagine the future, and fight for the present.
