{"id":4069,"date":"2020-12-02T09:10:07","date_gmt":"2020-12-02T08:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/?post_type=documentaire&#038;p=4069"},"modified":"2023-06-07T06:54:05","modified_gmt":"2023-06-07T04:54:05","slug":"the-slave-trade-and-slavery-in-the-indian-ocean-the-question-of-memory-treated-by-contemporary-reunionese-artists","status":"publish","type":"documentaire","link":"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/en\/documentaires\/memory-of-slavery\/artistic-works\/the-slave-trade-and-slavery-in-the-indian-ocean-the-question-of-memory-treated-by-contemporary-reunionese-artists\/","title":{"rendered":"The slave trade and slavery in the Indian Ocean: the question of memory treated by contemporary Reunionese artists"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>During the colonial period in Reunion, the enslaved members of the population were not able to create artistic objects or develop any sort of artistic environment. Within the sphere of multifaceted cultural expression, only the elite, well off and educated bourgeoisie, organised around intellectual societies, were able to express themselves.<\/h2>\n<div style=\"width: 525px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('video');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-4069-1\" width=\"525\" height=\"295\" poster=\"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/poster_de-bollivier.jpg\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/DE_BOLLIVIER_Eng_SUB.mp4?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/DE_BOLLIVIER_Eng_SUB.mp4\">https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/DE_BOLLIVIER_Eng_SUB.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<p>While the Indian and Chinese communities benefited from a degree of tolerance as regards the practice of their religious beliefs, their \u2018artistic\u2019 expression was not recognised or given any legitimate status. The dominant intellectual discourse was at the service of the French powers and the \u2018veranda civilisation\u2019, that is to say the large landowners incarnating the imperialist ambitions of mainland France <span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.8187661314600873\" aria-label=\" P. de Bollivier, Art contemporain r\u00e9unionnais, art contemporain \u00e0 La R\u00e9union. Construction locale de l'identit\u00e9 et universalisme en art en situation post-coloniale, Ecole des Hautes \u00e9tudes en Sciences Sociales, directed by Jacques Leenhardt, 2005, p. 99.\">&nbsp;<\/span>. Only artistic objects reflecting the traditions of the dominant culture came to be considered as belonging to the history of the visual arts. To quote C.A. C\u00e9lius, the fact of considering the slave as an inferior and dehumanised being \u201cimplied negating his capacity to create and obscuring any creative practices \u2026 A being with no notion of \u2018art\u2019 is one of the features of the figure of the slave constructed by the masters. This image profoundly permeated the history of art and aesthetics\u201d<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.940166991063571\" aria-label=\" C.A.C\u00e9lius, \u00ab Cr\u00e9ation plastique, traites et esclavages \u00bb, Cahier des anneaux de la m\u00e9moire, n\u00b012, Nantes, 2009, p. 14,15.\">&nbsp;<\/span>. The collective heritage of Reunionese society thus retains few objects of artistic creation or religious worship produced by the enslaved members of the community. When dealing with the the issue of the memory of slavery and the slave trade, contemporary artists are faced with a double void: that of words and that of traces.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2018M\u00e9mwar: couler Kr\u00e9ol\u2019<\/em> (Memory, Creole colour), <em>\u2018Les arts d\u00e9cha\u00een\u00e9s<\/em>\u2019<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.001903618442017696\" aria-label=\"Exhibition at Jeumon to celebrate 20th December 1991, organised by the associations \u2018B\u00e2tissage\u2019 and \u2018Loukanou\u2019. Artists presented : Jack Beng-Thi, Antoine du Vignaux, Fran\u00e7ois Giraud, Eric Pong\u00e9rard, Wilhiam Zitte and Laurent Segelstein.\">&nbsp;<\/span> (The arts unshackled), <em>\u2018Les bouts de bois Hurlants \/ au fil de la m\u00e9moire\u2019<\/em> (Screaming splinters of wood \/ The thread of memory),<em> \u2018L\u2019Abolitoire<\/em>\u2019<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.7208237963925038\" aria-label=\"\u2018The abolitoire: machine to manufacture liberty.\u2019 Exhibition of the work of Alain Padeau to mark 20th December 1992 at the Stella Matutina museum in Saint-Leu.\">&nbsp;<\/span> (Machine to manufacture liberty),<em> \u2019F\u00eat Kaf T\u00eat Kaf Ombline Maloya<\/em>\u2019<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.011738707406095172\" aria-label=\"Exhibition of works by Wilhiam Zitte and Antoine du VIGNAUX to mark 20th December 1992 at the de Vill\u00e8le Historical Museum.\">&nbsp;<\/span> (Celebration of blacks, heads of blacks, Ombline Maloya),<em> \u2018Kaf an tol<\/em>\u2019<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.5661744290937427\" aria-label=\"Exhibition of works by Wilhiam Zitte at the Office D\u00e9partemental de la Culture (Department of Culture) in 1994.\">&nbsp;<\/span> (Black man in jail), <em>\u2018Chambre Noire, chants obscurs<\/em>\u2019<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.8804036605955126\" aria-label=\"Exhibition of anthropometric photographs by D\u00e9sir\u00e9 Charnay (19th century) organised by Sudel Fuma and Wilhiam Zitte at the Palais Rontaunay in Saint-Denis in 1995.\">&nbsp;<\/span>(Dark room, dark songs), <em>\u2018Bwad\u00e9b\u00e8ne\u2019<\/em><span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.9665467878068064\" aria-label=\"These two exhibitions were organised by Wilhiam Zitte at the Artoth\u00e8que in 1997 and 1998.\">&nbsp;<\/span> (Ebony), <em>\u2018Regards crois\u00e9s sur l\u2019esclavage<\/em>\u2019<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.8987519941785779\" aria-label=\"Exhibition held at the L\u00e9on Dierx art gallery in 1999.\">&nbsp;<\/span> (Crossed visions of slavery),<em> \u2018Aboli, pas aboli l\u2019esclavage\u2019<\/em><span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.7606286484459085\" aria-label=\"Exhibition of \u2018mail art\u2019. Curators: Wilhiam Zitte, Julien Blaine, Andr\u00e9 Robert, Artoth\u00e8que (Departmental Council of Reunion) 1998, Ventabren Contemporary Art Centre. 1999.\">&nbsp;<\/span>(Slavery: Abolished or not abolished): all works produced on commission to mark the anniversary of the abolition of slavery<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.523235137384138\" aria-label=\"Example: in 1989, \u2018Le r\u00eave de l\u2019esclave endormi\u2019 (Dream of sleeping salve), series of sculptures in basalt, Gilbert Clain, Piton Rouge. Commissions for 150th anniversary by several town councils on the island in 1998.\">&nbsp;<\/span>. These exhibitions bear witness to a true shift in attitudes that took place in the 1990s, with the organisation in the public sphere of events linked, closely or less so, to slavery: an abundance of events that highlighted even more intensely the general silence that had, up till then, reigned over this painful period of our history. This awakening was linked to the militant activity that had been operating in the private sphere since the 70s and which was able to come to light in the years to follow. The Socialist party coming to power in France and the acceptance of identity questions as part of public policy, reflecting a European context favourable to the emergence of regional languages and cultures, all led to truly vibrant cultural activity in Reunion during the 1980s and 1990s.<\/p>\n<p>How have artists treated this question of memory? What forms and what artistic language are used? What aesthetic choices have been made? What political attitudes are expressed? The ethical and political dimension cannot be dissociated from the question of memory when it comes to the slave trade and slavery: it permeates all works of art treating the topic, whether by artists who have decided to place the issue at the heart of their work or artists who have integrated it into their artistic expression in a peripheral manner. There are also works that have responded to the large number of commissions requested by public bodies in the 80s to mark the successive anniversaries of the abolition of slavery. Globally, on the formal level we can note the existence of a basic artistic vocabulary recurring in such works (painting, sculpture etc.): patterns, postures, graphic figures expressing oppression and domination, but also rebellion, liberation, fugitive slaves seized like captives with their hands tied behind their backs, diagrams of the hulls of slave ships, broken chains, images of men and women standing upright, after breaking their shackles. In addition to these characteristic elements, we can note a large range of artistic practices, with multiple techniques playing an important role, as well as appropriation of vernacular practices.<\/p>\n<p>Wilhiam Zitte, Jack Beng-Thi and Karl Kugel have constructed their artistic expression around these questions related to memory, resilience and reconstruction of human relations.<\/p>\n<h3>Wilhiam Zitte: making visible the invisible and reversing the gaze<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.32109362502874916\" aria-label=\"Extract from an article already published under the title \u201cL'art revendicatif et identitaire en situation postcoloniale : le travail de Wilhiam Zitte, plasticien r\u00e9unionnais,\u201d in L\u2019art contemporain \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9preuve du lieu, directed by Dominique Berthet, L\u2019Harmattan, Paris, 2004.\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>A self-taught artist nourished by knowledge from encyclopaedias, after a short spell in a religious seminary, Wilhiam Zitte worked as a primary school teacher. It was while teaching pupils from very underprivileged backgrounds that he started to experiment, using \u2018poor\u2019 materials (newspaper, turmeric, yoghurt, crushed earth etc.), which then became the basis of his artistic production. An activist militating for recognition of the Reunionese identity, Wilhiam Zitte produced a vast range of artistic works (paintings, sculptures, drawings, stencils in public spaces, installations in the landscape, collections of objects, texts, productions and exhibition curations), all grouped together under the general term of what he referred to as \u2018arcreology\u2019. \u201cClearing overgrown or little explored paths in memory of the escaped slaves\u201d<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.2133352366958189\" aria-label=\"Ozima in Revue Noire n\u00b016, special Indian Ocean issue April-May 1995, p. 40.\">&nbsp;<\/span>, rehabilitating the image of the black person, restoring the history of the island and that of the least visible elements of Creole culture: Wilhiam Zitte\u2019s artistic project is eminently ethical and political, but also contains a deeply mystical and religious dimension. As an artist, he explored the archives of the island\u2019s past, as though exploring a landscape, in search of vestiges of escaped slaves and slavery. Collecting and diverting them, he invented his own artistic language. If history had erased their traces, he would create them himself.<\/p>\n<h4><strong><em>\u2018Ceux que nous voyons, ceux qui nous regardent<\/em>\u2019: Those we see, those who watch us<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.21595298765264093\" aria-label=\" Cf. Georges Didi-Huberman, \u00ab Ce que nous voyons, ce qui nous regarde \u00bb, Les \u00e9d. de Minuit, 1992.\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In the early 1990s, he unearthed a set of anthropometric photographs in the archives, taken by D\u00e9sir\u00e9 Charnay<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.747790050177295\" aria-label=\"Claude-Joseph Le D\u00e9sir\u00e9 Charnay (D\u00e9sir\u00e9 Charnay), born on 2nd May 1828 at Fleurie, died on 24th October 1915, was a French explorer, archaeologist and photographer.\">&nbsp;<\/span> in 1863. These brutal and disturbing images present, in the manner of a taxonomical catalogue, \u2018racial types\u2019, simply labelled \u201cAfricans, Madagascans, mixed-race Arabs, Chinese, black Creoles\u201d. Men, women and children, taken face on, from behind and in profile, some with chains around their ankles, stripped naked or half-naked, standing before the photographer\u2019s lense \u201cfor the purposes of science\u201d at the time.<br \/>\nIn collaboration with the historian Sudel Fuma and the poet Carpanin Marimoutou, Wilhiam Zitte set up an exhibition entitled<em> \u2018Chambre noire, Chants obscurs\u2019<\/em> (Dark room, obscure voices)<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.19120948985196817\" aria-label=\"\u2018Chambre noire, Chants obscurs\u2019, anthropometric photographs by D\u00e9sir\u00e9 Charnay, \u2018Types de la R\u00e9union\u2019, 1863. Exhibition catalogue, texts by Sudel Fuma, J.C.C. Marimoutou. Exhibition curator: Wilhiam Zitte. General Council of Reunion Nov. 1995.\">&nbsp;<\/span> to show the public these photographs, long lying forgotten at the Natural History Museum in Saint Denis. The exhibition and its accompanying publication were presented at the Mus\u00e9e de l&#8217;Homme in Paris and the Palais Rontaunay in Saint-Denis in 1995.<\/p>\n<p>The painful but salutary encounter with these dreadful pictures was a landmark in Wilhiam Zitte\u2019s artistic development. In the words of Jean Arrouye: \u201chis entire aesthetic attitude stems from the choice of these images and the emblematic role the artist assigns to them.\u201d<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.09903353573094409\" aria-label=\"Jean Arrouye, Kritik 974, exhibition catalogue, 1995, pp. 23.\">&nbsp;<\/span>. Applying a process of successive enlarging of the original photographs using a photocopier, he notably produced a series of portraits painted on jute sacking, entitled <em>\u2018Ombline Maloya\u2019<\/em><span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.5936056535980858\" aria-label=\"Ombline Panon Desbassayns, owner of a large number of slaves, is depicted in written documents as being a very generous person and \u2018 Second Providence\u2019 for the slaves. Oral tradition, however paints a picture of a woman who was very cruel towards her slaves and whose soul is condemned to burn for ever in the volcano of La Fournaise.\">&nbsp;<\/span>: the resulting faces with their hard contrasted features were transformed through the treatment applied by the artist. Observed close up, they are unrecognisable, but if you step back, they become recomposed, as though transfigured, their gaze expressing determination, as though inhabited by a new presence. The paintings were exhibited in 1992, during the 20th December celebrations and in collaboration with Antoine du Vignaux<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.6975609223723438\" aria-label=\"Visual artist born in Casablanca, Morocco, in 1955. He has been living and working in Reunion since 1985.\">&nbsp;<\/span>, in the context of artistic research on the image of the black person in a highly symbolic place in Reunion: the Panon Desbassayns estate (de Vill\u00e8le Historical Museum). Wilhiam Zitte proposed a series of large works entitled <em>\u2018Ombline maloya<\/em>\u2019, depicting a gallery of portraits of ancestors who, according to Jean Arrouye, took on \u201cthe value of the return of those who had been repressed\u201d<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.48584961401918836\" aria-label=\"Jean Arrouye, Kritik 974, exhibition catalogue, 1995, pp. 22-25.\">&nbsp;<\/span>.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1570\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1570\" style=\"width: 495px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/ombline-maloya-affiche-exposition2.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"taille-initiale wp-image-1570 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/ombline-maloya-affiche-exposition2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"495\" height=\"650\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/ombline-maloya-affiche-exposition2.jpg 495w, https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/ombline-maloya-affiche-exposition2-228x300.jpg 228w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 495px) 100vw, 495px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1570\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Exhibition \u2018Ombline Maloya\u2019: poster. 1992.<br \/>Historical Museum of Vill\u00e8le Collection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Wilhiam Zitte painted on open canvas, with no wooden structure or external frame: old recovered jute sacking, but also bottoms of barrels, rusty tin sheets, supports that reflect the packaging of the goods that were shipped along with the slaves. According to the artist, these materials still bear \u201cthe memory of those who were parked in the hulls of the slave ships\u201d <span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.5529681893942257\" aria-label=\"Jean Arrouye, id.\">&nbsp;<\/span>: in the absence of other material traces, other than the cold accounting lists drawn up by the notaries, they become allegorical witnesses.<\/p>\n<p>Thus he created the<em> \u2018T\u00eat Kaf\u2019<\/em> (African heads), which became emblematic of his work. Some were imaginary portraits, others portraits of friends or created from old photographs or more recent images from the press, quickly taking on the value of rallying signs or symbols. The artist scattered them around as stencils on walls, on the \u2018black\u2019 (tar) of the town, in the landscape, but also on newspapers, post-it notes, posters and stickers, perpetuating the process of graphic contamination with patterns of figures deviated from the diagrams of the holds of slave ships. He transformed the reclining bodies, laid down and shackled, turning them into rows of free, dancing silhouettes represented on his paintings, but also printed or embroidered on textiles (shirts, table-cloths etc.), or on object of interior design (ceramic or cut-out tin lampshades). For his series entitled <em>\u2018Domoun 97.4\u2019<\/em> (People of 974 Reunion) and <em>\u2018Alfab\u00e9 Domoun\u2019<\/em> (People\u2019s Alphabet), the artist took photographs of groups of men, women and mothers with children that he deviated and set up side by side, turning them into pictograms. The little black silhouettes become an alphabet, producing encrypted texts inscribed on large canvasses covered with rhythmic patterns.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1545\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1545\" style=\"width: 800px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/2003-11-01-koz-langaz.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"taille-initiale wp-image-1545 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/2003-11-01-koz-langaz.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"746\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/2003-11-01-koz-langaz.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/2003-11-01-koz-langaz-300x280.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/2003-11-01-koz-langaz-768x716.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 767px) 89vw, (max-width: 1000px) 54vw, (max-width: 1071px) 543px, 580px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1545\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Koz langaz. William Zitte. 1999. Acrylic painting, on canvas.<br \/>Art library of Reunion Island Collection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The work on memory continued in 1994 with the exhibition<em> \u2018Kaf an Tol\u2019<\/em> depicting four hundred <em>\u2018Tet Kaf\u2019<\/em> (African heads) at the Departmental Cultural Bureau in Champ-Fleuri<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.6180626749988851\" aria-label=\"With texts by Graziella Leveneur, Riel Debars, Carpanin Marimoutou, Danyel Waro, Izabel Testa.\">&nbsp;<\/span>, alongside an extract from the genocide museum of Pnom-Penh. Four hundred \u2018representations\u2019<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.7083126101155015\" aria-label=\"According to the Littr\u00e9 (Dictionary), a Representation is a moulded and painted figure representing the deceased during the funeral ceremony.\">&nbsp;<\/span>, which deployed their gaze through a number of exhibitions and at various sites, including the tunnel of Art\u2019S\u00e9nik at Ravine des Sables in the year 2000, for the exhibition<em> \u2018I rogard pa\u2019<\/em> (Not looking). Colette Pounia described it as being: \u201cAn epiphany-like road-map. A great number of heads inside a tunnel, like little lamps to enlighten our weakening memory, enabling us to confront the stifled scream (\u2026) the trail is a maze of different itineraries, like tales to be told, links with ancestors and crossed visions\u201d <span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.5939334815729952\" aria-label=\"Colette Pounia, in \u2018Artcr\u00e9ologie \/ arkr\u00e9olozi\u2019, exhibition catalogue Wilhiam Zitte, Galerie Gounod, La R\u00e9union, 2006.\">&nbsp;<\/span>.<\/p>\n<h4><strong>The artistic, the sacred and the political<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Wilhiam Zitte\u2019s actions in the landscape go back a long way: as early as 1880 he went in search of the vestiges of history and occupied the natural site of Piton Rouge, a former fugitive settlement on a volcanic cone culminating at 2,397 metres. The Office National des For\u00eats (Forestry Department) unearthed potato plants and bones on the site. In 1990, for the bicentenary of the town council of Saint-Leu, the council commissioned Gilbert Clain to produce a series of sculptures<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.8781682294044295\" aria-label=\" Reunionese sculptor. Article: \u2018Situation de l\u2019art \u201ccontemporain\u201d \u00e0 la R\u00e9union : le cas d\u2019un artiste \u201cHors-norms \u201d\u2019 by P. de Bollivier, in Recherches en Esth\u00e9tique n\u00b07, Marge(s) et p\u00e9riph\u00e9rie(s), October 2001, Fort-de- France. Directed by Dominique Berthet. Published by: \u00e9d. Jean-Michel Place.\">&nbsp;<\/span>, depicting a sleeping slave and his dream of freedom. The sculptures were set up in the former crater of Piton Rouge. This \u201cmemorial to escaped slaves\u201d was not the sole work to inhabit this extinct volcano, overlooking the sea. Not far from the official commissioned work, Wilhiam Zitte discreetly installed his own monuments: piles of stones, pebbles set up in the trees, <em>\u2018T\u00e8t Kaf\u2019<\/em> (African heads) tagged on the ground and on the signs put up by the Forestry Commission. He created the vestiges of this fugitive civilisation that has left us with so few traces, creating for them tombs, the remains of their culture. Through these tangible elements, like elements of proof that are all the more vocal because they are not ostentatious, the landscape becomes inhabited, peopled and alive. The artist declared that he invented traces that history had erased: \u201cOur lies can consolidate memory. And this is something we need\u201d<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.8809571354092621\" aria-label=\"Cf. \u00ab Le paysage : entre conservation et cr\u00e9ation \u00bb, P. de Bollivier, AKOZ\/espace public n\u00b0 4, March 1999.\">&nbsp;<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>The work accomplished at Piton Rouge was never \u201cthe object of an exhibition\u201d, in the aesthetic sense of the term, nor was it reproduced in a published work. It bore no signature, but remained an \u201copen work\u201d. People hiking here often added a stone or two, their signature. Were they aware of contributing to a work of art? Was their intention imbued with the sacred? Were they giving homage or making a gesture that was like an obscure ritual linked to the place and its aura? Wilhiam Zitte leads us to question the limits of the sacred and the profane. It was like the <em>\u2018Ti bon di\u00e9<\/em>\u2019<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.9676385280929435\" aria-label=\"Roadside altars, very common in Reunion, dedicated to Saint-Exp\u00e9dit\">&nbsp;<\/span> (little altar) the artist created by a roadside and that the population appropriated for themselves by laying down gifts of flowers, candles, incense and so on, not realising that it was actually the work of an artist.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1572\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1572\" style=\"width: 491px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/2003.11.02-ti-bondie-1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"taille-initiale wp-image-1572 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/2003.11.02-ti-bondie-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"491\" height=\"650\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/2003.11.02-ti-bondie-1.jpg 491w, https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/2003.11.02-ti-bondie-1-227x300.jpg 227w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 491px) 100vw, 491px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1572\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u2018Ti Bondi\u00e9\u2019. 2003. Wilhiam Zitte. Acrylic, graphite oil pastel, turpentine.<br \/>Art library of Reunion Island collection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Wilhiam Zitte\u2019s art is a funerary art. His <em>\u2018T\u00eat Kaf\u2019<\/em> are fighting to stay alive, fighting death \u201cthat land where you go to lose your memory,\u201d in the words of Chris Marker<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.07839517517594896\" aria-label=\"In \u2018Les statues meurent aussi\u2019, by Chris Marker and Alain Resnais, short film in the journal \u2018Pr\u00e9sence Africaine\u2019, 1953.\">&nbsp;<\/span>. His main challenge, even when exhibited in sites of contemporary art works (galleries, institutions and other temples of art), was above all an aesthetic one. His is a cultural art-form, like African statues and masks or Coptic effigies: they are vehicles of vital forces, sacred representations, \u201cvictorious faces repairing the fabric of the world\u201d <span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.6564529815591097\" aria-label=\"Chris Marker, id.\">&nbsp;<\/span>. Their main objective is not to be sold and hang on the wall of an art-gallery or someone\u2019s living room, but to give voice to the thousands of men lost to oblivion, to rebuild the link between the living and the dead. \u201cWhat documents do we have,\u201d asks the artist, \u201cto tell us that slavery existed? With the exception of a few notarial deeds, what traces are left ?<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.12056652027163162\" aria-label=\"Wilhiam Zitte, interviewed by P. de Bollivier, Artoth\u00e8que, 21 June 1995.\">&nbsp;<\/span> I recreate the archives. We need such lies. By painting the portrait of a mythical ancestor, Zitte\u2019s project thus fills a void, responding to the imperative necessity to recount, show and give a face to those Carpanin Marimoutou refers to as<br \/>\n\u201cghosts\u201d<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.2331382416478468\" aria-label=\"\u201cL\u2019histoire r\u00e9unionnais a fait du Kaf, au d\u00e9part, un fant\u00f4me, puisqu\u2019elle l\u2019a d\u00e9poss\u00e9d\u00e9 du statut de sujet en faisant de lui un esclave, sans nom, sans histoire, sans culture, sans terre, sans pouvoir...\u201d, \u201cVouloir repr\u00e9senter le kaf implique donc de se confronter \u00e0 la question du fant\u00f4me, comme \u00e0 la question de ce qui \u00e0 la fois fait retour et manque d\u2019advenir, de ce qui insiste et fait d\u00e9faut, dans cette pr\u00e9sence douloureuse de l\u2019absence....(...)\u201d (Initially, the history of Reunion turned the black man into a ghost. It dispossessed him of any status of subject since he was just slave, with no name, no history, no culture, no power\u2026 Trying to represent the black man thus involves confronting the question of the ghost, like the question of both looking backwards and the absence of any future, both insistence and lack, confronted with the painful presence of the absence.\u201d) J-C.Carpanin Marimoutou, catalogue Kaf an Tol, 1995.\">&nbsp;<\/span>. Transforming the \u2018Kaf\u2019 (black person) into a person watching, bringing him out of oblivion, giving him a presence, an existence, \u2018re-presenting\u2019 him, amounts to changing his status. He is no longer a ghost, but has become an ancestor.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1586\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1586\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/1991-02-02-marronnage-le-doute-1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"attachment noopener wp-att-1586\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"taille-initiale wp-image-1586 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/1991-02-02-marronnage-le-doute-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"650\" height=\"449\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/1991-02-02-marronnage-le-doute-1.jpg 650w, https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/1991-02-02-marronnage-le-doute-1-300x207.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1586\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Escaped slaves in doubt. Wilhiam Zitte. 1990. Pigments, oil pastel, ink on paper.<br \/>Art Library of Reunion Island Collection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Wilhiam Zitte\u2019s art is political art, in its desire to construct a different image of the black person in the Reunion of yesterday and that of today. Representing the rebellious black man, the black man standing upright, the mystical black man means first of all making a break with appeasing representations and with the image of submissiveness transmitted history. He also refuses to take a fictional stance, which could people his universe with invented figures, and chooses rather to base his work on documents and traces having archaeological connotations. This allows him to be part of reality, anchoring flesh and blood beings in the truths of history.<em> \u201cOur identity contains in its foundations an element, a component that has not been taken into consideration. Our action is aimed at making sure it is. If we always talk using \u2018joking\u2019 terms, in terms of humanistic criticism, if the image of the black man always refers to caricatures, like the \u2018golliwog\u2019 in Noddy\u2026 Still today, the black man is presented from the outside, we have the image of the American black man, which is quite surprising. But where is the image of the black man in Reunion? Who defines him?\u201d<\/em><span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.4006341436418859\" aria-label=\"Wilhiam Zitte, interviewed by P. de Bollivier, 21 juin 1995.\">&nbsp;<\/span>. His work on the image of the black man was part of a more general analysis of the history of art and the issue of aesthetic criteria<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.6122044415404878\" aria-label=\"Echoing the words of a publication by the M\u00e9nil Foundation \u2018L\u2019image du noir dans l\u2019art occidental\u2019 published by Gallimard, 1989.\">&nbsp;<\/span>. He constantly invited artists to work on the question of memory, notably through the collective exhibitions he curated: <em>\u2018Bwad\u00e9b\u00e8ne\u2019<\/em> (Ebony wood) in 1997, <em>\u2018Aboli pas aboli l\u2019esclavage\u2019<\/em> (Slavery: abolished, not abolished), in collaboration with Julien Blaine and Andr\u00e9 Robert in 1998. Consideration of the history of Reunionese art, Creole art, being one of his major preoccupations, he considered it absolutely essential that it should avoid being locked inside a uniquely Euro-centred vision. His stance thus espoused the global cultural and political notion of \u2018Black is beautiful\u2019 (which he translated into Reunionese Creole as: <em>\u2018Kaf l\u00e9 joli<\/em>\u2019), or that of \u2018N\u00e9gritude\u2019. He prolonged it with a questioning of artistic and ethical criteria, including those that determined popular representations linked to phenotypes:<em> \u201cBecause the Indian has a fine nose and straight hair he is more handsome than the African with his thick lips. I refute these aesthetic generalisations\u201d<\/em> <span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.24647902464447025\" aria-label=\"Wilhiam Zitte, interviewed by P. de Bollivier, Le Port, le 22\/11\/1999\">&nbsp;<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, rather than a homage or a memorial to a world inhabited by ancestors roaming tombless, Wilhiam Zitte\u2019s \u2018arcreology\u2019 creates \u201cfigures who at last permit the process of mourning\u201d<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.08492121267714614\" aria-label=\" J-C. Carpanin Marimoutou \u2018Contre la fascination, une anthropologie du regard\u2019, exhibition catalogue, Arsenik, 2000.\">&nbsp;<\/span>and thus lays down the foundations of a \u201ccivilisation claimed to be infused with meaning and myth, at one and the same time based on premises and fantasy, dream and reality, also a Creole civilisation\u201d<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.7463125353366887\" aria-label=\" Carpanin Marimoutou, \u2018Contre la fascination, une anthropologie du regard\u2019, exhibition catalogue, \u2018I rogard pa\u2019, Arsenik, 2000.\">&nbsp;<\/span>.<\/p>\n<h3>Jack Beng-Thi: Incarnating history, repairing the body, inhabiting the place<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.36917490665021446\" aria-label=\"Extract from \u2018Au fil de la m\u00e9moire, Bouts de bois hurlants et Ligne Bleue h\u00e9ritage... Sculptures et installations de Jack Beng-Thi\u2019, P. de Bollivier, Cahier des Anneaux de la M\u00e9moire, dir. by Carlo A. C\u00e9lius, 2009, p. 153.\u2028\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Following a ten-year absence, Jack Beng-Thi came back to Reunion at the age of 28. After studying at the School of Art of Toulouse and the University of Paris VIII, he travelled widely in Europe and Latin America. The break with his island, as well as his encounters with other civilisations, gave birth in him to a feeling emptiness, confronting him with issues of emptiness, of void and absence of memory in the society. 400 years of history is very short, but when this history has been whittled away through collective oblivion in the society, on what bedrock are we to construct representations of the self and of our people? No traces, no images remain of the slave trade, so few written documents on slavery and so much silence! While, in the words of Chamoiseau, the \u201ctruth\u201d of slavery has been lost forever through lack of personal testimonies and while no one is able to given an account of the horrors of the slave trade, it seems, nevertheless, that plunging into the hellish reality of the holds of the ships is a necessary condition for emerging out of the dark night of the colonialism. Like a beacon for the spoken word, the artist becomes the litmus paper, creator and direct witness of a memory he incarnates.<\/p>\n<h4><strong>Archives of naked flesh<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.36407391194559646\" aria-label=\"Title of a collection of poems by Jean-Henri AZ\u00c9MA, ADER \u00e9ditions, 1998. Jean-Henri AZ\u00c9MA, aka Jean AZ\u00c9MA, was a Reunionese poet born in Saint-Denis in 1913 and died in Buenos Aires in 2000. During World War II, he collaborated with the Germans. In 1990, when visiting Reunion, he admitted he had been mistaken and lost his way. (sources : Wikip\u00e9dia).\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In 1977, representing the School of Art of Toulouse at a residency at the Cit\u00e9 Internationale des Arts in Paris, the artist was able to search through the archives of the h\u00f4tel Soubise, whilst studying for a Bachelors and then Masters degree at the University of Paris VIII. He read the Black Code (Code Noir) from cover to cover. <em>\u201cThat was when I became aware of the issue of the body,\u201d<\/em> he declares. <em>\u201cwhat the body had to undergo. The physical issue connected to the denial of the person. I consider this to be the fundamental issue\u201d<\/em><span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.20620383487454963\" aria-label=\"Jack Beng-Thi, interview with P. de Bollivier, 13th February 2001.\">&nbsp;<\/span>. Like Orpheus in the underworld, Beng-Thi set out on a quest: going in search of those drowned by history, exploring the hell of the ship\u2019s hold, to retrieve and reincarnate its ghosts, taking the risk of being turned into a pillar of salt.<em> \u201cWhen carrying out my research, I experienced the body lying down, experiencing suffering and anguish \u2026 I place myself inside this history,\u201d<\/em> he says<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.674851022826866\" aria-label=\"\u2018Portrait d\u2019artiste : Jack Beng-Thi\u2019, documentary by Florans F\u00e9lix and Thierry Hoarau, Imago production\/Artoth\u00e8que de La R\u00e9union, 2004. \">&nbsp;<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>Following on from this journey through the archives, there was his encounter with matter. <em>\u201cI started to work on the body and to position it (&#8230;). There being no written documents, no books recording this chapter of our history,<\/em> (\u2026)<em> I consider my creative work to be an important medium that will give an account.\u201d<\/em> The artist elevates his direct experience, his presence, to the level of witness, infusing the imagination with its primary function of constructing in the present on the bedrock erased by history but out of which man can once more rise up.<\/p>\n<p>It was in his workshop Beng-Thi re-enacts and transcends the drama. A large tub contains clay magma that the artist waters, with movements recalling rainfall. Plunging his hands into the earth, he uproots strips of naked flesh. The earth, as primeval matter, becomes the fundamental choice of material made by the artist, giving him physical contact with the body: <em>\u201cBy touching this earth,\u201d<\/em> he declares, <em>\u201cin a totally metaphoric manner, I touch the skin and the body, physically. A tactile experience\u201d<\/em><span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.6081560666649972\" aria-label=\"\u2018Portrait d\u2019artiste : Jack Beng-Thi\u2019, id \">&nbsp;<\/span>. Before our very eyes, a body is created, still lying down, still sleeping. After an initial drying stage, the sculptor takes the body out of its plaster sarcophagus and immediately places it upright, vertically: a figure now standing up straight. Another comes to join it soon, then a third \u2026 the artist then takes them one by one, giving an individual identity to each of these identical forms. His hands mark the matter, still damp, closing up accidental gaps, healing wounds, repairing flesh, grafting skin, tending broken bones. Workshop accidents, accidents of history, the artist erases time, using his fingers to reunite <em>\u201cthe splinters of the skin scattered by the wind\u201d<\/em><span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.6244239249545688\" aria-label=\"J.H. AZ\u00c9MA, 1979. Quoted by Michel Beniamino, L\u2019imaginaire r\u00e9unionnais, \u00e9d. du Tramail, Saint-Denis, La R\u00e9union, 1992, p.134.\">&nbsp;<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>This period in the confinement and secrecy of his workshop is an essential step to the understanding of Jack Beng-Thi\u2019s creative process. It is at this precise instant that the artist repairs history and incarnates through matter the ghosts of the maritime tragedy, permitting mourning to occur at last. He deliberately makes use of medical vocabulary when describing his process and explains that using plaster and metal prosthetics to enable the bodies to remain upright is far from innocuous. However, he is not simply a doctor, but also takes on the role of magician when, with a gesture similar to that of certain exorcism rituals, he scatters a mixture of coloured earth over the bodies<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.4297301721340073\" aria-label=\"The artist repeated these same gestures in 2004 during a performance in homage to those killed by the dictatorship in Haiti.\">&nbsp;<\/span>. Incantations follow on closely, seemingly uttered by the very mouths of the figures, awakening after a long sleep. The artist talks of a <em>foundational, manifest and transcendent act, announcing a mental renaissance, overturning images to achieve the new reconstruction, enabling the emergence of the long-awaited metamorphosise<\/em><span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.4025007820470431\" aria-label=\"Jack Beng-Thi, Ligne bleue-h\u00e9ritage\/Territoire int\u00e9rieur\/p\u00e9rif\u00e9ria, 2002, in Sobremesa, exhibition catalogue, Le Port, 2007.\">&nbsp;<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>In the hands of the artist, a transmutation takes place, the workshop becoming the antithesis of the hull of the slave ship: inside this alchemist\u2019s athanor<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.9366891180608037\" aria-label=\"The symbol of the crucible for physical, moral or mystic transmutations. For the alchemist, the athanor, where the calcification takes place, is a matrix, egg-shaped like the world itself, which is a huge Orphic egg, that is used in all initiation ceremonies, in Egypt as in Greece and, like the Spirit of the Lord or Ruah Elohim, floats on the waters. The spirit of the world, the spirit of life, must float on the waters of the athanor and the alchemist must be sufficiently skilful to seize it. Marcel Griaule, Masques dogons, Paris, 1938. Quoted by J. Chevalier and A. Gheerbrandt, Dictionnaire des symboles, R. Laffont, 1982.\">&nbsp;<\/span> a new race of man is born, standing upright, marching forward.<\/p>\n<h4><strong>So now my country and I can stand upright\u2026<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.382761937390085\" aria-label=\"Aim\u00e9 C\u00e9saire, <em>Cahier d\u2019un retour au pays natal<\/em>, in Volont\u00e9s (journal), no 20, 1939, Paris, 1st edition\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Au fil de la m\u00e9moire, Les Bouts de bois hurlants, Nostalgique sweet vacoa, Arrachement Carg. C12, Territoire Ma\u00efdo\/Incision\/arrachement, Ligne Bleue-H\u00e9ritage, La constellation des manquants..<\/em>. (The thread of time, Screaming splinters of wood, Nostalgia of sweet screwpine, Wrench Cargo C12, Territory Ma\u00efdo\/Incision\/Wrenching, Blue line-Heritage, Constellation of those missing). The works of Beng-Thi, with their evocative titles, raise the question of the body and its territory or territories and it is through the memory (a memory to be explored, enlightened and reconstructed) that he will create the primary and generic link that turns a group of bodies into a people standing upright.<\/p>\n<p>The issue of the body and that of its representation are fundamental. After having <em>\u201cextracted them from the archives\u201d<\/em>, as he says, the artist is confronted with the question of how to represent them. In the majority of the works he created in the early 1990s, the body is physically present through semi-realistic representations in terra cotta. For each series, they all come out of the same mould and are of the same size, which varies from installation to installation and can reach a height of 1.6 metres. They are like antique busts disproportionately elongated by the artist, who adds on a monolithic torso with no legs or arms, akin to mummies or chrysalides to which a head has been added. The bodies are simplified, minimalist. The absence of anatomy and any notion of proportion in the western sense of the term brings Beng-Thi\u2019s work close to the traditional sculptures of sub-Saharan Africa or Egypt, the purpose of which was to provide a support for the immortal \u2018double\u2019 of the ancestor after the physical departure of the person deceased. According to Cheikh Anta Diop<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.6293251225298744\" aria-label=\"Intellectual et humanist from Senegal, born in 1923 died in 1986. Historian et anthropologist, he emphasises the contribution made by Africa and in particular Black Africa to the culture and civilisation of the world. His theories are today contested by the western scientific community.\">&nbsp;<\/span> who refers to \u2018the African cannon\u2019, the realistic character of the representation, whether the arms or torso are too long or too short, is of little importance, since they are merely the symbol of the ancestor, now returned and present in the midst of the living.<br \/>\nThe upper part of the body (shoulders, neck and head) are generally modelled realistically. The remaining sections of the body disappear into the torso, the shape of which varies from installation to installation.<\/p>\n<p>Hold your head up, stand up straight<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.9094768925150173\" aria-label=\"\u2018Relever la t\u00eate\u2019 (Hold your head up), later entitled \u2018Se tenir debout\u2019 (Stand up straight) : translations of Wolof titles of the journal created by the Rassemblement National D\u00e9mocratique (RND : National Democratic Front) founded by Cheikh Anta DIOP in 1976. Sources : \u2018Cheikh Anta Diop, restaurateur de la conscience noire\u2019, by Fabrice Hervieu Wan\u00e9, Le Monde diplomatique, January 1998 \u2014 Page 24 and 25.\">&nbsp;<\/span>\u2026 While the body is at times reclining (as in <em>Mira Slum, Arrachement Carg. C12<\/em>), more often than not it is vertically upright, its posture dynamic. The bodies are attached, anchored, bundled up, but they manage to stand upright and exude a high amount of synergy. From these conflicting impressions of paralysis and movement is born the idea of combat, of struggle. It is as though these heads, seemingly gifted with language, have emerged out of their matrix and shaken off their iron shackles. String, rope and thread, very much present in Beng-Thi\u2019s works, contribute to creating this ambivalence: rope, natural and coloured raffia, wire, nylon fishing lines, optic fibre: all of these attach or liberate, link together or suspend, decorate and create repetitive patterns on the surfaces.<\/p>\n<p>Also, the body is rarely represented alone, but as part of installations that can number between 2 and 30 figures. The artist moves from creating statues to setting up installations and the group of bodies set up in the space creates the impression of movement. The collective dimension is very much present in the artist\u2019s technique. Having started off searching for his own origins and that of his family, Ben-Thi ended up giving voice to and constructing his people. He declares: \u201c<em>I represent my body. The body of others too. It is us. It is our history. I place myself inside this history<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 What he is interested in, beyond the Vietnamese and Bengali origins of his family, is the way \u201cthe bodies were wrenched from the continent to be shipped to the island.\u201d This projection in space, in that very specific historical and political context, gave rise to the birth of a people. The idea of the genesis of a new people is what enables him to transcend the body, \u201c<em>the body<\/em>\u00a0 <em>fragmented in its finiteness, its disaster and its vulnerability<\/em>\u201d<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.5772717935865226\" aria-label=\"\u2018Bouts de bois hurlants\/La pyramide aux esprits\u2019, Jack Beng-Thi, in Sobremesa, exhibition catalogue, le Port, 2007. \">&nbsp;<\/span>.<\/p>\n<h4><strong>Reconquered territories<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>From the start, the question of territory became essential, leading him to explore spaces buried deep down in the memory: plunging deep into the hell of the ship\u2019s hold, sailing the seas where, to the visionary eye, there still lingers <em>\u201cthe smoke of the higher events, where history still burns,<\/em>\u201d<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.2434804479683894\" aria-label=\"Saint-John Perse, Exils, Gallimard, 1960.\">&nbsp;<\/span> diving to the depths of the ocean in search of the bones stripped naked by the salt, gazing \u201cbehind the landscape\u201d of the island, where the shadows of peoples toiling under the yoke of the master are still hidden and giving expression to the melancholy linked to the impossible return to the fantasised \u2018elsewhere\u2019 that is the motherland \u2026 Explicitly, many of his works contain references to this issue of place, even in their titles. Both in his in situ works such as<em> \u2018Territoire Ma\u00efdo\/Incision\/Arrachement\u2019<\/em><span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.3854828581707218\" aria-label=\"Work created for the exhibition Lieux de m\u00e9moire organised by the FRAC-R\u00e9union in 1944 in the hinterland of the west of Reunion.\">&nbsp;<\/span>, or his installations, such as<em> \u2018Ligne bleue-h\u00e9ritage\u2019,<\/em> exhibited at the Biennale of Cuba in 1997, or <em>\u2018Au fil de la m\u00e9moire\u2019<\/em>, the works of Beng-Thi record the ambivalent link tying us to territories, whether these are our motherland, our territory of choice or the ocean, at the same time shroud, insurmountable liquid barrier and sacred element with purifying properties. Jack Beng-Thi\u2019s technique is part of the process of \u201creconquering\u201d territories pillaged by history. He declares: <em>\u201cFor too long we were confined to spaces that were too small, the hold of the boat, the sugar-estate and prohibitions of all kinds.\u201d<\/em> While all the early works he exhibited<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.17270422729101642\" aria-label=\"\u2018Sculpture \u00e0 La R\u00e9union\u2019, exhibition for the inauguration of the FRAC R\u00e9union in 1986 (Alken, Jack Beng-Thi, Claude Berlie-Caillat, Gilbert Clain, Marc Lambron, Didier Legall, Alain Padeau, Alain Seraphine).\">&nbsp;<\/span> were small-format friezes, in the years to follow, very quickly his bodies stood upright and were placed in a space, initially through his use of rounded sculptures and their positioning in his installations. The artist also creates an opening onto a transcendent space, materialised through certain works that recall the infinity of the heavens, a metaphor of the spiritual dimension, also very much present in his work: <em>\u2018Territoire stellaire\u2019, \u2018150 gardiens au pays des \u00e9toiles\u2019, \u2018La constellation des manquants\u2019, \u2018La pyramide aux esprits\u2019<\/em> (Stellar territory, 150 guardians in the land of the stars, The constellation of those absent, The pyramid of the spirits) The symbolic space of freedom and that of conscience are also the foundations of a new relationship with the island, opening out the space of \u2018ourselves\u2019, enabling the reconstruction the generic link and building a foundation for the society.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1576\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1576\" style=\"width: 440px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/1998-27-03-la-constellation-des-manquants-1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"taille-initiale wp-image-1576 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/1998-27-03-la-constellation-des-manquants-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"440\" height=\"650\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/1998-27-03-la-constellation-des-manquants-1.jpg 440w, https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/1998-27-03-la-constellation-des-manquants-1-203x300.jpg 203w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 440px) 100vw, 440px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1576\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A constellation of missing people. Jack Beng-Thi. 1997.<br \/>Ebony wood, terracotta, glass, light, nails, red paint, rope.<br \/>Art library of Reunion Island Collection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The work of Beng-Thi can be seen as a funerary homage, a funeral rite for <em>\u201cthe countless frizzy heads buried nameless in the abyss\u201d<\/em><span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.3185956854838402\" aria-label=\"Extract  from a poem by Patrice Treuthardt, a contemporary  Reunionese  poet: \u2018<em>O mer moire m\u00e9moire du peuple noir\/mer mer plus am\u00e8re que margoze am\u00e8re\/redis-moi les t\u00eates cr\u00e9pues de l\u2019innombrable\/enfouies sans nom dans l\u2019ab\u00eeme\u2019<\/em>, text carved on the forecourt of the media library of the town of le Port, 1993.\u2028\">&nbsp;<\/span>. Achieving the status of ancestor enables them to feed and support present and future generations. The body has been repaired, stands vertical: the upright man who will found the society. And when he refers to the victims of the slave trade, Beng-Thi declares: <em>\u201cthey are the ones who keep us alive\u201d<\/em>. He belongs to the current of the anthropological substrata, from the east coast of Africa to New Caledonia, passing through the large island of Madagascar, the earth where the mortal remains of the ancestors have been laid to rest and which is the privileged site of anchoring of the group. This territory is Reunion and the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n<h3>Karl Kugel <em>\u2018Corps\/territoire \/m\u00e9moire\u2019<\/em> (Body \/Territory \/ Memory): the link that is the essence of the work<\/h3>\n<p>Karl Kugel is a photographer and visual creator. Notably awarded the<em> \u2018Hors les Murs\u2019<\/em> grant by the Villa M\u00e9dicis for a project in China, he was one of the co-founders of the group of photographers BKL, which, from 1990 to 1994, recorded the evolution of three neighbourhoods in Reunion, through a creative publishing project entitled<em> \u2018Entre Mythologies et Pratiques\u2019<\/em> (Between mythologies and practices) bringing together photographers, sociologists, artists and philosophers. He has settled on the island and has deployed work deeply anchored in the territories of the Indian Ocean (notably Mozambique and South Africa). As the epicentre of his artistic creation, he explores the relationship to the body, to the sacred and to territories, applying a poetic and artistic approach of ethnographic dimensions with deeply political and symbolic messages: <em>\u2018R\u00e9cits des corps\u2019<\/em> (Narration of bodies) (1997-2002), <em>\u2018Camp Calixte\u2019<\/em> (2003),<em> \u2018Et les engins vont Retourner la terre\u2019<\/em> (And the machines will turn over the earth) (2004), <em>\u2018Makwal\u00e9\u2019<\/em> and finally <em>\u2018Le Jardin de la m\u00e9moire\u2019<\/em> (The Garden of Memory), which he created at Ilh\u00e0 in Mozambique, as part of the UNESCO \u2018Slave Routes\u2019 program.<\/p>\n<p>Renewing dialogue, linking up practices and territories, creating a link: the work of Karl Kugel draws its essence very exactly from the place where human and artistic adventure are born and develop. At the centre of his work there is the link, woven like a victorious response to the violence of history, to the exile of human groups wrenched away from their land and deported. The link with the body, link with the sacred, with the earth and with the motherland: the link which is the foundation of the place and which places Reunion inside a space shared with the Makwa region, but also with Madagascar, Mayotte and South Africa. The Indian Ocean is a vast country and through memory, dialogue between cultures and fertile encounters, Karl Kugel explores this space.<\/p>\n<p>His work on the tradition of martial arts, common to the descendants of slaves, led him to work with photographers from Mozambique (Ricardo Rangel, Kok Nam etc.). He set up regular exchanges between the two countries, producing a series of images later gather together for an installation, then published in a book entitled<em> \u2018Saudade de l\u2019espoir\u2019<\/em> (Saudade of hope), a work which, in the words of the artist \u201coscillates between bearing witness to a period of silence in the history of Mozambique \u2013 the the period of colonisation and its social system of apartheid, followed by almost 15 years of Civil War \u2013 and the emotion felt in the face of the profound beauty of life\u201d<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.21142846638480806\" aria-label=\" Karl Kugel, Saudade de l\u2019espoir, Oc\u00e9an Edition, 2003.\">&nbsp;<\/span>.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1557\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1557\" style=\"width: 1772px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/2001-12-20-danse-de-combat-a-la-reunion.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"attachment noopener wp-att-1557\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1557 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/2001-12-20-danse-de-combat-a-la-reunion.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1772\" height=\"1225\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1557\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Combat dance in Reunion Island, Le Chaudron, St. Denis. Karl Kugel. Between 1997 and 2000. Baryta paper; analogue process, black and white.<br \/>Historical Museum of Vill\u00e8le Collection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Created during his regular comings and goings between Mozambique and Reunion, \u2018Makwal\u00e9\u2019<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.6999955197263414\" aria-label=\"The 'Makwal\u00e9 service' (or \u2018servis Makwala\u2019) is a ritual originating with the Makwa people which, 18 months after the person\u2019s death, enables the deceased to achieve the status of ancestor. It was no longer celebrated in Reunion after the Second World War. Fran\u00e7ois Dumas-Champion, \u2018Le mariage des cultures \u00e0 La R\u00e9union\u2019, Paris, Karthala, 2008.\">&nbsp;<\/span> is a \u201clay ceremony\u201d, which Karl Kugel refuses to refer to as a \u2018performance\u2019. A multifaceted and recurring work combining images, singing, poetry, music and martial arts. It calls up the cultural markers common to the two cultures: from the \u2018Jako\u2019 in Reunion, a mysterious character from Indian belief, to the \u2018Wanalombo\u2019 of Mozambique, a \u2018divine\u2019 mediator and key to the initiation rites of the Makond\u00e9 people\u201d<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.9713256067433479\" aria-label=\"Pascale David, T\u00e9moignages, 28 September 2004. Cf. also Clicanoo,15\/12\/1998 https:\/\/www.clicanoo.re\/node\/413439\">&nbsp;<\/span>. With over 400 photographs, a film showing Prom\u00e8s, the last Jako and a circle of participants<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.32563883973921737\" aria-label=\"The singers Nathalie Natiemb\u00e9 and Dany\u00e8l Waro, the poet Christian Floyd Jalma, the dancers Wanalombo, the percussionists of the National Dance Company of Mozambique, as well as Jean-Ren\u00e9 Dreinaza (first Reunionese to become French Champion of \u2018Savate\u2019, creator (in 1994) and coordinator of the Reunion Moraingy Committee (in 2004) et Moraingy fighters of Reunion.\">&nbsp;<\/span> which grows with each new public experience, Makwal\u00e9 is a visual and living creation which, according to Karl Kugel, \u201cexplores the paths of history, of the mystical and imaginary universe that surrounds the martial arts. Around the circle, at the heart of the human village, Makwal\u00e9 evokes exile and its violence, amnesia, but also hope, dreams and belief in beauty.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1578\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1578\" style=\"width: 436px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/2017-1-4-jako-male-et-jako-femelle-danser-zako-1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"taille-initiale wp-image-1578 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/2017-1-4-jako-male-et-jako-femelle-danser-zako-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"436\" height=\"650\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/2017-1-4-jako-male-et-jako-femelle-danser-zako-1.jpg 436w, https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/2017-1-4-jako-male-et-jako-femelle-danser-zako-1-201x300.jpg 201w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 436px) 100vw, 436px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1578\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Male and female jako dancers &#8211; \u2018danser zako\u2019. Karl Kugel. 1999. Analogue process, digigraphy.<br \/>Historical Museum of Vill\u00e8le Collection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1580\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1580\" style=\"width: 442px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/en\/?attachment_id=1580\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"taille-initiale wp-image-1580 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/2017-1-5-wanalombo-village-makonde-de-Nampula-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"442\" height=\"650\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/2017-1-5-wanalombo-village-makonde-de-Nampula-1.jpg 442w, https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/2017-1-5-wanalombo-village-makonde-de-Nampula-1-204x300.jpg 204w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 442px) 100vw, 442px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1580\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Wanalombo, the makond\u00e9 village of Nampula. Karl Kugel. 1998. Analgoue process, digigraphy.<br \/>Historical Museum of Vill\u00e8le Collection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>As a continuation all his work on creating links, in 2003 Karl Kugel embarked on the construction of the Garden of Memory in Mozambique, under the impulse of the historian Sudel Fuma<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.5918655565132658\" aria-label=\"Under the UNESCO \u2018Slave Routes\u2019 project. \">&nbsp;<\/span>. The project was given form on the island of Mozambique, in the region of Nampula, on a plot donated by Ministry of Culture of Mozambique. True hub of the slave trade, the island of Mozambique was the site of the forced departure of hundreds of thousands of women and men shipped to different destinations around the world (Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf, South America, the Caribbean and North America). Located at the crossroads between different civilisations, it was the capital of the country until the end of the 19th century and played an important role for trade in East Africa. From this period, it has retained a magnificent architectural heritage and in 1992 was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1582\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1582\" style=\"width: 542px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/documentaires\/memoire-de-l-esclavage\/expressions-artistiques\/lart-expression-de-la-memoire-de-lesclavage\/1-vue-generale-jardin-de-la-memoire-kkugel-2\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"taille-initiale wp-image-1582 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/1-vue-ge\u0301ne\u0301rale-jardin-de-la-me\u0301moire-\u00a9KKUGEL-1-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"542\" height=\"650\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/1-vue-ge\u0301ne\u0301rale-jardin-de-la-me\u0301moire-\u00a9KKUGEL-1-1.jpg 542w, https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/1-vue-ge\u0301ne\u0301rale-jardin-de-la-me\u0301moire-\u00a9KKUGEL-1-1-250x300.jpg 250w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 542px) 100vw, 542px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1582\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Panorama of the \u2018Jardin de la M\u00e9moire\u2019. Karl Kugel. 2007. Photography. (All rights reserved)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Karl Kugel structured the Garden of Memory on the basis of a pattern linked to martial arts, creating a series of <em>\u201cron\u201d<\/em>: circles traditionally traced by the dancers of <em>Moraingy<\/em> (martial art of Reunion) before the combat and given various functions. A first \u2018ron\u2019 is devoted to walking, a second is seen as a space of initiation, surrounded by busts sculptured by Mozambican (Elias Joao Mungus and Manuel Jos\u00e9 Rita) and Reunionese (Sophie Bazin et Johary Ravaloson) artists. The third circle opens out onto the sea, overlooking the empty space, to which each person can give the meaning he or she thinks fit. The garden expresses the desire to reveal and consolidate a memory common to the people of the Indian Ocean \u201creminding the populations of the countries of the Indian Ocean of the links that have united them throughout history and, through what they have created in our respective cultures, that today can contribute to the construction of a common destiny\u201d<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.8249411251796077\" aria-label=\"Pascale David, T\u00e9moignages, 8 February 2007.\">&nbsp;<\/span>.<\/p>\n<h3>Conclusion<\/h3>\n<p>Wilhiam Zitte, Jack Beng-Thi and Karl Kugel each in their own way have produced committed works of art, proposing ways to read the present where a reconstructed and fertile memory plays an important role.<\/p>\n<p>When Reunionese artists treat the issue of slavery and the slave trade, they are building on a substratum of silence and emptiness in respect of memory, nourishing creation in general, producing the need to speak, reveal and denounce but also to repair the body and restore the image, with the aim of re-appropriating history and constructing a common foundation. Patrick Camoiseau spoke of \u201cnaming and constructing in the respect of the memory that is absent\u201d<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.8752830672527558\" aria-label=\"Patrick Chamoiseau, \u201cUn dimanche au cachot\u201d, Gallimard, 2007, p.315\">&nbsp;<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>Broadly speaking, artistic creation is seen as the political act of a symbolic reconquering of territories looted by the slave trade. It begins with the body, in its demise and its transcendence, representation, movement, language, words, but also the relationship with the self, with others, the link with the motherland and with the island. It can also be seen as a sacred, funerary, ritualistic act, linking the deceased with the present and raising those who have disappeared to the level of ancestors, permitting the construction of a collective resilience.<\/p>\n<p>Questions of escaping and insubordination also constantly recur, both in the topics treated and in the attitudes of the artists. This is the case of the works by Christian Jalma, or Pink-Floyd, then Floy Dog, who actually exhibited with W. Zitte, J. Beng-Thi and K. Kugel. According to Aude-Emmanuelle Hoareau, his creations \u201creactivate hope and fear, going beyond the historical framework of slavery, of a non-domesticated body which, through its capacity for rebellion, becomes liberated\u201d<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.3168965783431903\" aria-label=\"Aude-Emmanuelle Hoareau, \u00ab La koif en transe\/Christian Jalma \u00bb, in Koif, le Corridor bleu Lerka \u00e9d., 2018, p. 36.\">&nbsp;<\/span>. Through his multifaceted and tentacular works (videos, performances, novels, poetry, musical compositions including an opera), the poet-artist offers a fascinating theory on the integration of the black person in the Reunionese society and his wanderings towards his hypothetical origins in search of an identity<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.7500478896490402\" aria-label=\"\u2018Les tribulations d'un Cafre amn\u00e9si - Retour en Afrique\u2019, video, 3'31'', 4\/3 SD, \u00a9 Christian Jalma aka Pink Floyd.\">&nbsp;<\/span>. He also treats questions of amnesia and memory, Creole expression and the construction of \u2018Creolisation\u2019, which he sees as a trap, going so far as to invent a language known to him alone and demanding the right to write in a version of French riddled with errors<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.29790090660713586\" aria-label=\"Christian Jalma (Pink Floyd), \u2018Le pouvoir \u00e9ph\u00e9m\u00e8re des lapsus\u2019, \u00c9d. Grand Oc\u00e9an, Saint Denis (La R\u00e9union), 1997.\">&nbsp;<\/span>. He also embarked a lecture of history going against current trends, setting up the \u2018Nen\u00e8ne\u2019 (nanny) as a central pillar in the construction of Reunionese culture and society<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.44547164163292186\" aria-label=\"Cf his performances-lectures around the table of Auguste Biard (1798-1882), entitled \u2018The abolition of slavery\u2019, painted in 1848.\">&nbsp;<\/span>. Stronger then amnesia, the figure of the ancestor is omnipresent in the work of Floy Dog, \u201cthat ancestor whose traces have been lost, the slave forgotten by history but still alive in our chromosomes-memories<span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.7165961003666271\" aria-label=\"Aude-Emmanuelle Hoareau, \u2018La koif en transe\/Christian Jalma\u2019, in Koif, le Corridor bleu Lerka ed., 2018, p. 36. Also \u2018Christian Jalma dit Floyd Dog, Un artiste de l'indignation\u2019, by Aude-Emmanuelle Hoareau, http:\/\/lautremusique.net\/lam3\/deambule\/christian-jalma-dit-floyd-dog.html\">&nbsp;<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>To quote Marie-Jos\u00e9e Matiti-Picard, when poets, writers and, in this particular case, visual artists revive the memory of the tragic history of the island through the topics of slavery and the slave trade<em> \u201cit is actually a representation of our origins they are offering us\u201d<\/em><span class=\"NOTE_MARKER\" rel=\"0.5733410955972212\" aria-label=\"Marie-Jos\u00e9e Matiti-Picard, \u2018L\u00e9gendes r\u00e9unionnaises : lieux de l\u2019imaginaire, lieux des origines\u2019, Francofonia 53 \u2013 Autumn 2007, Les litt\u00e9ratures r\u00e9unionnaises, p. 27-50.\">&nbsp;<\/span>. The emergence of a Reunionese memory thus rests on the anchoring, the engraving of the discourse in history and within the space of the island. Reunion does not have a founding myth, but a founding people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1542,"parent":3620,"menu_order":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-4069","documentaire","type-documentaire","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/documentaire\/4069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/documentaire"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/documentaire"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/documentaire\/3620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portail-esclavage-reunion.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}