VOYAGEUR / ALMANAC
dakar biennale - off
Maison des Cultures Urbaines de Ouakam
may 21-june 04, 2022
Installation view of works by Anna Binta Diallo, both 2022. Photo by Moridja Kitenge Banza
Voyageur/Almanac
Developed over the past two years, the works within Voyageur/Almanacs expand on Diallo’s interest in folklore and extend it into our ecological surroundings. Human beings have long used story-telling and folklore as a way to assign meaning and impose order on an otherwise chaotic world. For Diallo, interrogating these stories is an opportunity to question their fundamental nature – why they exist, how they’ve been constructed and told, and how they’ve ultimately shaped our world. In doing so, she raises questions regarding memory, identity, migration, personal and collective mythologies, as well as the relationship between language and history. In Voyageur/Almanacs, Diallo expands this investigation into the ecological world, examining the ways in which humans have attempted to comprehend and exert control over the natural environment. Taking the form of large scale, immersive installation, the works within Voyageur/Almanacs, combine human and geometric forms with various scientific and ecological elements. Drawing from a wide set of references – spanning geography, earth sciences, landscape, and weather patterns, these hybridized figures seem to exist somewhere outside of the natural constructs of space and time. They appear simultaneously both futuristic, yet are firmly rooted in history. Through this, the works in Voyageur/Almanacs offer a space of possibility – one in which to slow down and re-imagine how we might move towards a more symbiotic relationship with the natural world. Anna Binta Diallo would like to thank The Canada Council For The Arts and the Barbara Spohr Memorial Award offered by the Walter Phillips Gallery for their financial support of this work. |
Centre CLARK presents a new iteration of the exhibition Habiter le monde which will be part of the Off programming of the 14 ᵉ edition of the Dakar Biennale, at the Maison des Cultures Urbaines de Ouakam.
DAK'ART OFF / HABITER LE MONDE : ESQUISSE D'UNE RENCONTRE CURATOR: MORIDJA KITENGE BANZA + ANNA BINTA DIALLO BERIROUCHE FEDDAL MATHIEU LACROIX PATRICK HENRY MICHAËLLE SERGILE EXHIBITION AT THE MAISON DES CULTURES URBAINES DE OUAKAM / MAY 21 - JUNE 4, 2022 OPENING / MAY 21, 3PM - 5PM It is with great pleasure that Centre CLARK presents a new iteration of the exhibition Habiter le monde which will be part of the Off programming of the 14 ᵉ edition of the Dakar Biennale, at the Maison des Cultures Urbaines de Ouakam. Initiated and curated by Moridja Kitenge Banza, this project brings together once again artists Anna Binta Diallo, Mathieu Lacroix, Michaëlle Sergile, Patrick Henry to which Berirouche Feddal is added. To this cohort of artists, will join two Montréal curators supported by LOJIQ, Geneviève Wallen and Joséphine Rivard. Thus, in addition to presenting the work of these artists, this project will allow the participants to find a space for meeting and exchange beyond Montréal, where a multitude of visual art projects will provide other reflections on how each person inhabits the world as a human being. ABOUT THE EXHIBITION: Habiter le Monde : esquisse d’une rencontre (Inhabiting the World: Outline of an Exchange) is a reflection on the act of inhabiting a site, a space, a body, a geography. To live there by “choosing” modalities that allow us to become one with the territory on which we have chosen—or not—to reside. For us, african and afro-descendant people who are part of this project, Montréal is the territory we cohabit. It is from here that I, you, he, she, we consider the world. It is from here that day to day our stories take root in a space that is as complex as the afro-descendant communities that live here. In keeping with Felwine Sarr’s essay on interpersonal politics1, which invites us to renew the imaginary relationship we build with our fellow human beings and all living things, my curatorial proposal—which I think of as a visual art essay—raises questions about power issues that exist within a given territory. More specifically, it questions the long-term effects these issues have and the ways in which they shape us. Drawing from their individually distinct North American realities, each of the artists in this exhibition present single or multiple works that foreground the singularity of their personal experiences. Through these distinct journeys, these voices express the plurality and complexity of our experiences and become an outline for a broader reflection. - Moridja Kitenge Banza (translated by : Jo-Anne Balcaen) 1. Felwine Sarr, Habiter le monde. Essai de politique relationnelle, Montréal, Mémoire d’encrier, 2017. More information on the exhibition presented at Centre CLARK in May 2021: https://centreclark.com/en/exhibition/habiter-le-monde-esquisse-dune-rencontre/ Further reading Artnews.net An African Photography Biennale Makes a Case for Mali as a Creative Hub—But the Global Art World’s Bad Habits May Hold It Back |
