KK
Immersive installation — 2020
at (Re)penser [ (Re)think ] a collective exhibition curated by SeizeMètresCarrés
An empty belly~shopping cart with a broken spine stranded in the river oƒ the city — 2006
Here lies the Kakarèl Kolonyal.
The one that keeps pouring out ƒrom the tops oƒ towers~plantations, through our screens~billboards, along roads, sidewalks, and canals, ƒrom rivers to the sea, everywhere, into our homes, into us, directly into our bellies~carts, our veins, nerves, umbilical cords, into our waters, ƒrom which thoughts may rise.
The photograph above was one oƒ the starting points ƒor this installation. I captured this scene during a photographic walk in Terres Sainville, the town where I lived while studying visual arts. As I walked along the canal, I encountered this hybrid structure — organic, metallic, and plastic — emerging ƒrom the undulating, stagnant water. Struck by its resonance with the state oƒ the colonized world, I photographed it and later exhibited it ƒor the first time within KK, during the group exhibition (Re)penser, curated by SeizeMètresCarrés in 2020 — a show contextually dedicated to confined worlds.
KK {Kakarèl Kolonyal} is an immersive installation that explores the abusive and criminal psychic impacts caused by audiovisual pollution and manipulation — targeting our souls, bodies, and lands through advertising that fosters and sustains consumerist addiction, further intensified by confinement. Kakarèl means both diarrhea and fear — two meanings that aptly evoke the dripping, paralyzing spread oƒ the colonial continuum / contamination. So, how can we (re)think within a space-time polluted and saturated by the ongoing diffusion~infusion oƒ colonial imagery?
Daytime view oƒ the KK {Kakarèl Kolonyal} installation at SeizeMètresCarrés
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As night falls, in the corner oƒ a room lit by red cemetery candles, a screen oƒ cloudy, torn thoughts — connected to a cluster oƒ intertwined lianas and roots, piled on an overturned golden shopping cart overflowing with detritus and masks — loops excerpts ƒrom 20th-century colonial advertisements, bathed in a magmatic soundscape suggesting troubled digestion.
Excerpts ƒrom 20th-century colonial advertisements
On the final night oƒ the four-day exhibition, a masked creature — chained to the shopping cart and facing the 'screen' — frantically nibbled small pieces oƒ paper ƒrom a long, seemingly endless bag oƒ crisps made ƒrom a golden survival blanket. These paper crisps were torn ƒrom a strange booklet titled "Little Blue Book... Open — What if we decided to see Martinique's future in blue?"
Neslon-Rafaell Madel sitting beside the creature during the performance — extract ƒrom the documentary (Re)penser by Sentwòz
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1) footage ƒrom the KK video installation 2) 4) 6) photographs by Léa 3) self-portrait 5) mural drawing
Specifications
media: mixed media sculptures, archives, audio~video editing, performance
space: SeizeMètresCarrés
time: 05 → 08 / 2020
media: mixed media sculptures, archives, audio~video editing, performance
space: SeizeMètresCarrés
time: 05 → 08 / 2020
Credits
curated by SeizeMètresCarrés
collective exhibition (Re)penser with Gwladys Gambie, Niyabja, Nelson-Rafaell Madel, Jeremie Priam, Florence Baudin, Dala and Nadia Charlery
mediation: Elsa Zenzi
oppening night with Nico, Niyabja and St Claude
curated by SeizeMètresCarrés
collective exhibition (Re)penser with Gwladys Gambie, Niyabja, Nelson-Rafaell Madel, Jeremie Priam, Florence Baudin, Dala and Nadia Charlery
mediation: Elsa Zenzi
oppening night with Nico, Niyabja and St Claude