The Black Cat Kingdom

The Black Cat kingdom is a scifi-style story about my neighbourhood cats during the first lockdown.

It was the 1st of April, just a week after the start of the first lockdown. I was having my usual morning walk with my dog when I decided to pass through an alleyway that I usually do not go to. That’s when a gang of five black cats started running towards us. It felt like I had encountered a glitch in the Matrix.

I started to visit these cats daily for a period of three months because they gathered up into the same alleyway every morning; I began bringing them food and playing with them because I realised they were not taken care of. With colour flashes, I started to change the colors of these black cats and their surroundings to build connections to superstitious beliefs and fairytales.

Visiting these cats every morning became a ritual to me. I was able to build this dream world, where I could enter every morning, to escape the distressing reality caused by the lockdown. The work is reflecting my longing to connect with people, when being away from my home country and loved ones, during an outbreak of a global pandemic.