MINOR DEMONS (2026)

129" x 114"

aluminum

HD video with sound

TRT: 23:14

During the 70s, my father was a member of Trinidad and Tobago’s Flying Squad, a group formed within the Police Service. When the government threatened to oust and publicly prosecute its members in the 80s via the publication of findings made during a commission of inquiry into the service (now known colloquially as the Scotts Drug Report), he evaded repercussions by fleeing to New York and then to Miami, where I was born in 1994 and where he currently resides alone. In a twist, his name was not included. Therefore, no known records of his actions exist. Thus, I consider the following questions: How might the hauntological archive of his transgressions be engaged with in the absence of material truth or the burden of proof? What might a spectral notion of justice look like? How has the carceral state shaped the conditions of my existence?

The video follows a slightly fictionalized version of myself as they dig through a copy of the Scotts Drug Report (obtained during a research trip to the National Archives of Trinidad and Tobago in 2019) as research for a video within the video. The document itself, however, grows sentient in response to the protagonist’s probing. While the protagonist understands that a document produced by the state to shape the narrative around its’ own crimes against its’ citizens can never be a complete document, the text itself begins to push back against this assertion. The gaps in it come alive–haunting the protagonist through their dreams at night and through physical (dis/mis)appearances during the day. The absence of proof of their father’s crimes then becomes a thick, pervasive presence in and of itself, one that refuses to be understood as purely incidental but essential to the maintenance of the state’s tyranny. The protagonist must then determine how to atone for what is not written, what is beyond language, and what cannot be accessed without spiritual intervention as a matter of inheritance.

Commissioned by Carnegie Museum of Art for the 59th Carnegie International with additional support from Sweat Variant and Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator. 

Cast:

Protagonist: maya finoh

Best Friend: Emma Cager

Father: Amarachi Ujagbor

Therapist: Gabriella Oloye

DJ: Maxime Pierre

Bartender: Kristie Laplante

Extras:

Denae Boothe

Kayla Fagenbaum

Gavin Walcott

Terrell Payne

Vianca Collazo

Sebastian Stewart

Brian Valencia

Dawnyes Rezgui

Director/Writer: Kearra Amaya Gopee

Producer: Natalie Jasmine Harris

First AD / Production Coordinator: Milena Montero

Director of Photography: Imani Nikyah Dennison

First Assistant Camera / DIT: Anthony Vella

Gaffer: Alvin McBean

G&E Swing: Joshua Felipe

Key Grip: Trevor Owens

Production Assistant: Carlos Alfageme

Set Dresser / Art Dept PA: Dawnyes Rezgui

Set Dresser / Art Dept PA: Katie Ramsden

PA / Driver: Namilla Sanchez

Sound Mixer & Boom Op: Raymel A.Casamayor Bello

Production Designer: Rraine Hanson

Wardrobe Designer: Brian Valencia

PA / BTS Photography: Isadora Machado

Editor: Kearra Amaya Gopee

Assistant editor: Hannah Rafkin

VFX: Carrie Sun

Music: Zane Rodulfo

Sound design: Bob Brockmann and Eli Cohn

Colourist: Natacha Ikoli

Title designer: Essence Enwere

Filmed on location in Broward County, Florida.

SPECIAL THANKS:

Moon Ferguson

Juan Luis Matos

Max Pierre

Carrie Sun

Mariales Diaz

Yoko Kohmoto

Sharee Silerio

Christy Andreoni, Film Lauderdale

Jason Williams

Carlos Quintana

Katie Schiller and Letícia Bianco

Chromat

HellHound Films

Qloudy Sunshine Multimedia

Film Broward

Broward County Film Commission

Broward County Parks and Recreation

Town of Lauderdale-By-The-Sea

Fabrication- Patrick Camut

Special thanks to curators Danielle A. Jackson, Ryan Inouye and Liz Park.