Decoy

Brendan Fernandes is a multidisciplinary artist who examines issues of cultural displacement and migration through installation. Currently he is preoccupied with how tourism's sensationalized vacations, such as safaris, contribute to the exploitation of cultures by transforming them into entertainment. Grounded in post-colonial theory, his work unpacks the manufacturing of culture, including, the numerous ideologies that surround the souvenir, the idea of the exotic, and the experience of travel as fantasy. Conspicuously, his work represents an investigation into the concept of "authenticity" as an ideological construct that both dominates and subordinates culture's use to their own ends, each shaping cultural experience, thereby informing concepts of identity, including his own.