This Master of Fine Arts thesis investigates a photographic archive of indentured labourers whose portraits were taken for government record when photographic technology was in its nascency on the British colonial island of Mauritius. As a Mauritian-Canadian, queer, multidisciplinary artist-researcher, I will address ancestors through a unique cultural vantage point. I will use the method of research creation paired with post-colonial theory, intersectional feminism and queer theory to uncover the complex relationality hidden in the page of tome PG2 of the archive released to me by the Mahatma Gandhi Institute in Mauritius. The thesis includes three mixed media artworks which will provide a transtemporal link to the inhabitants of the archive.

Keywords: indenture, post colonial, intersectional feminism, queer theory, decolonial