CelineSianiDjiakoua

Synchronicities .... As I took part in the second artbook fair in Nottingham this year, I met Rosemary Watson   who invited me to talk about my work in her group Artists Book Club Sheffield . Jude, one of the participants, happened to be a volunteer guide at the Sheffield Botanical Garden. She kindly invited us for a visit last May. We admired and smelt all the flowers and I pretended to know the name of a few ... I would say that my knowledge of plants is more emotional than horticultural.... While it is generally recognised that the problems of urban overcrowding and epidemics in the nineteenth century eventually led to a realisation of the need to provide open spaces in industrial towns, it is interesting to note that the Sheffield Botanical and Horticultural Society Garden was open only to subscribers and the site selected was in a spacious middle class suburb, well away from the overcrowded working class area of the city. Even as late as 1852 a motion to admit the working clas...

I discovered Lytisha's garden this week and the abandonned glass house that a friend will dismantle to transport in his own garden. I was touched by the poetic beauty of plants wildly growing inside  as well  as  outside, suspending the function of this glass house.

 

  Dans un monde futuriste pas si éloigné du nôtre, ce ne sont plus les hommes qui règnent en maîtres. De nouveaux venus, les démons, dominent les hommes. "Defeat of masters and owners."  In a futuristic world not so far removed from our own, men no longer reign supreme. Newcomers, the demons, rule over mankind. EXTRAITS : Car nommer est pour eux une affaire d’importance. Quand ils rencontrent une plante ou un animal jamais vus, captent, inédite, la lumière d’une étoile distante, et même qui sait déjà défunte, mettent le pied sur une grève ou seuls d’autres animaux apparemment ont imprime des traces, c’est leur geste reflexe – trouver en eux un nom et le prononcer distinctivement histoire de voir comment il vibre. For them, naming is an important matter. When they come across a plant or animal they've never seen before, catch the unprecedented light of a distant star, or even one that's already deceased, or set foot on a shore where only other animals seem to have left...

While the museum shows work and efforts in decolonising some of its content, I found that the most powerful criticism and change of perspective was in the artworks of the artists they invited to respond to the museum. The artwork I most prefered was the site specific installation RE/STORE, a collaboration between Aimé Mpane and Jean-Pierre Muller, a series of 16 semi-transparent veils that half hide statues which couldn't be removed from the museum, even though they communicate very problematic colonial propaganda. Bien que le musée fasse preuve de travail et d'efforts pour décoloniser une partie de son contenu, j'ai trouvé que la critique et le changement de perspective les plus puissants se trouvaient dans les œuvres d'art des artistes invités à réagir au musée. L'œuvre d'art que j'ai préférée est l'installation in situ RE/STORE, une collaboration entre Aimé Mpane et Jean-Pierre Muller, une série de 16 voiles semi-transparents qui cachent à moitié des ...

This month, I visited the AfricaMuseum in Tervuren, near Brussels. The context in which this museum was created is very heavy. I started with a walk along the site where the 1897 colonial exhibition took place and where "African villages"/"human zoos" were built. Ce mois-ci, j'ai visité l'AfricaMuseum à Tervuren, près de Bruxelles. Le contexte dans lequel ce musée a été créé est très lourd. J'ai commencé par une promenade sur le site où l'exposition coloniale de 1897 a eu lieu et où des « villages africains »/"zoos humains" ont été construits. Aerial view of the site where the 4 "African villages" were built. Vue aérienne du site ou les 4 "villages africains" étaient construits.   Sites of the "villages" - site des "villages View of the park - vue du parc One of the cast-iron statues that were displayed at the international exhibition in 1897. Une des statues en fonte qui était exposée à l'exposition I...