Group Show:
BRANCHING STREAMS. SKETCHES OF KINSHIP. 15th edition of Biennal of Contemporary African Art in Dakar under the title: The Wake
Period: 18, May - 15, September 2024
Organiser: A research exhibition conceived by the project Reconnecting “Objects”
Organiser: A research exhibition conceived by the project Reconnecting “Objects”
Musée Théodore Monod d'art africain. Place Soweto, Dakar. 2024
Curatorial Team:
Lotte Arndt, ayoh kré Duchâtelet and Lionel Maes (La Villa Hermosa), Sam Hopkins and Marian Nur Goni, Rossila Goussanou, Lennon Mhishi, Lucie Mbogni Nankeng, Sophie Schasiepen.
Lotte Arndt, ayoh kré Duchâtelet and Lionel Maes (La Villa Hermosa), Sam Hopkins and Marian Nur Goni, Rossila Goussanou, Lennon Mhishi, Lucie Mbogni Nankeng, Sophie Schasiepen.
in close dialogue with:
Bénédicte Savoy, Ciraj Rassool, El Hadji Malick Ndiaye, Albert Gouaffo and Dan Hicks.
Bénédicte Savoy, Ciraj Rassool, El Hadji Malick Ndiaye, Albert Gouaffo and Dan Hicks.
Artists and authors:
Mikael Assilkinga, Lamine Badji, Nilla Banguna, Andri Burnett, Serges Demefack, Lune Diagne, Mati Diop, Stevie Douanla, Ekaterina Golovko, Mamadou Khouma Gueye, Sybil Coovi Handemagnon, Anna Helfer, Te Herekiekie Herewini, Robyn Humphreys, Fatima Jobe and the IMADI team, Bongani Kona, Aram Lee, Kegorogile Makgatle, Fungai Marima, Sibusiso Mkhize, Modboye, Masello Motana, Jens Mühlhoff, Emmanuelle Nsunda, Camilo Sandoval, Nathan Schönewolf, Fally Sene Sow, Ken Aicha Sy, Alioune Thiam, Ibrahima Thiaw, Isabelle Thomas, Sidoine Yonta, Lauriane Yougang.
Mikael Assilkinga, Lamine Badji, Nilla Banguna, Andri Burnett, Serges Demefack, Lune Diagne, Mati Diop, Stevie Douanla, Ekaterina Golovko, Mamadou Khouma Gueye, Sybil Coovi Handemagnon, Anna Helfer, Te Herekiekie Herewini, Robyn Humphreys, Fatima Jobe and the IMADI team, Bongani Kona, Aram Lee, Kegorogile Makgatle, Fungai Marima, Sibusiso Mkhize, Modboye, Masello Motana, Jens Mühlhoff, Emmanuelle Nsunda, Camilo Sandoval, Nathan Schönewolf, Fally Sene Sow, Ken Aicha Sy, Alioune Thiam, Ibrahima Thiaw, Isabelle Thomas, Sidoine Yonta, Lauriane Yougang.
The Gap - Lions and Treesupport
FMNH 23970 the standing mount and FMNH 23969 the crouching mount of the Tsavo lions, the two shells left from being lions, lions with a mouth injury, lions that 'developed a taste for human workers', hunted lions, dead lions, carpets and specimens. The work grows, like trees responding to gravity, around the gap left by the lions in their current state as 'standing' and 'crouching'. The support of the additive manufacturing process of fused deposition modelling is all that is physically there. The decision to show only the indentation of the shape and movement that the taxidermy process has given the lions in their current state comes from the many layers of their history, their bodies and the raw material that represents them now. In the process of making trophies, keeping them, selling them, buying them and reshaping them, the pain of the animal or of the people involved in the time when there were two living animals is not visible. There is only material to work with, to destroy, to preserve, to look at, to touch, not to touch and to change. As a carpet, gravity is barely visible; in a taxidermy process, gravity can be skilfully staged and concealed.
Trees, like other plants, have to carry all the water and all the material that gravity pulls down. They have evolved mechanisms to sense and respond to their environment by mediating their growth. Showing the support structure that could hold the lions standing and crouching is an attempt to show interest in the empty space that is carried in every story, every visual representation that our brains want to understand so easily. The fragility of the material, both in a physical sense and in a narrative sense, is what is being observed here.