The installation combines video, photography, sound, drawings and text, to set an immersive experience of reconnection with memory.
It is a journey: from the present to the past; from the image of the timelessness of human labor to the materiality of History, from sensitive intuition to the imposition of proof that lies in the archive.
I gathered the material for this installation during the shooting of my latest feature documentary, Words of Negroes. It unfolds the experience of the film in time and space.
It traces a path from impression and sensation to the appropriation of knowledge, and proposes a physical displacement through three steps, three successive spaces.
In the first space, the labyrinth of words, the visitors trace their own path through the embodiment of the archive, the second space plunges them into, the scene of labor, and the third, virtual, is a space of documentation and appropriation : this web site.
Text and photographic portraits panels printed on transparent veil. Surround and localised sound
The visitor first enters a dark space, the text of the archive forms a labyrinth, where he has to find his own way. The figures of the workers, and the words of the slaves, are his milestones, his landmarks.
IIt’s a space of superimpositions and transparencies, where visitors come into contact with the elusive materiality of images. It offers a journey, a physical exploration of memory.
The sound environment plunges us into the heart of a cane field, animated by the wind and the echoes of human labor. Voices stand out and guide us through the space: the voices of men speaking the words of slaves.
Digital video tryptich /synch binaural sound / drawings
A video triptyque draws a cinematic representation of the labour.Visitors are immersed in the mechanical rhythm, the sound of machinery, the rustle of cane stalks.
The video loop – lasting around 32’ – processes the real time of the gestures, the life size of the bodies, the panoramic construction of the space. It brings us face-to-face with the workers staged as messengers of memory, showing us its incarnation.
In the same space, ghostly drawn monumental figures float, barely illuminated by the afterglow of the screens ; hybrid, intermittent forms, somewhere between projection and imprint.
This installation was created within the MANIFEST ARTISTIC JOURNEY: an international project of art residencies drawing NEW PERSPECTIVES ON MEMORIES OF THE TRANSATLANTIC TRADE ONF ENSLAVED PEOPLE that culminated in an exhibition showcasing the project’s final artworks in Nantes in September 2024: AFTERIMAGES AND PERSPECTIVES ON COLONIAL ENSLAVEMENT.
Through the works presented, MANIFEST’s twenty-two artists aspire to reconcile individual and collective memories and preserve them from oblivion by employing new technologies such as virtual reality, podcasts, video, and sound and image art to offer visitors a comprehensive, immersive experience.