39th edition of Les Uns Chez Les Autres festival - Saturday, October 19 and Sunday, October 20, 2013
Curator: Julie Navarro, in collaboration with Caroline Hancock, curator of Afriphoto
the artists : Afriphoto-Sammy Baloji / Michèle Atchadé / Hung Chun Chen / Myriam Dao / François-Xavier Gbré /Anggy Haïf / Kapwani Kiwanga / Show Chun Lee / Kai-duc Luong / Claude Pouget et Anne-Marie Jeannou / Laurent Quenehen / Pascale Marthine Tayou / Chia-Wen Tsai / Georges Vikey / Kimiko Yoshida / Loïs Zongo
For some years now, Africa has represented an economic opportunity for China, and China an active partner for Africa. Against this changing international backdrop, the Les Uns Chez Les Autres festival projects a local meeting of cultures that coexist in the Belleville district: Chinese or, more broadly, Asian cultures, built up over the course of migratory flows, and African cultures, rich in their many expressions in the district. The Chinafrique contemporary art trail tells the story of a long journey from Shanghai to Bamako, carrying with it the memories of artists and their imaginations reincarnated for this project in the human warmth of a bustling neighborhood. Some twenty local and international artists and local associations question the Chinafrique engagement, revealing fantasies, hopes and concerns. From cross-dressing to culinary gestures, from tai mediation to trance-like dance, the works constructed in the magic of the real are charged with force as the trail unfolds, where rice itself acts as a symbolic language, linking China and Africa in friendship.
THE ARTISTS
Sammy Baloji questions the future of the Congo. In the Kolwezi series, he contrasts images of mining sites with Chinese posters of prosperous cities. Michèle Atchadé proposes video, sound and olfactory installations in a sensory universe combining real and fantasized memories.
Hung Chun Chen presents L'Algérie est encore loin, a film (26') questioning the Chinese presence in Algeria as seen through the eyes of photographers.
Myriam Dao's series Is Yellow Black or White ?#2 summons up African and Asian tutelary figures.
François-Xavier Gbré presents a photographic film on the history of Bamako's Olympic swimming pool, a fine example of the white elephant being resurrected thanks to Chinese investment. His work is presented in conjunction with the performance white elephant (sculpture in glutinous rice) led by Julie Navarro with local children.
Anggy Haïf, a modern-day Griot, his music is a fusion of African melodies sung in the Yambassa language (Central Cameroon). He also questions African traditions, which he reinterprets in sculptural creations.
Kapwani Kiwanga's Mbale is a series of photos of termite mounds in rural Tanzanian landscapes, to capture an oral tradition of chimera-making.
Show Chun Lee plunges us into the story of a young girl has arrived, a documentary film that sketches, image by image, the life of an undocumented Chinese woman.
Kai-duc Luong takes us on a poetic journey through the rice paddy of a Sino-Khmer mother's culinary memories.
Claude Pouget, aka Claude le boucher, recounts his friendship and trade with the Democratic Republic of Congo through travel photographs. In collaboration with Anne-Marie Jeannou.
In the series Les voyages immobiles, Laurent Quénéhen creates mixed marriages or alliances, which he seals as he pleases using cross-portraits and photographic framing.
Pascale Marthine Tayou proposes the Carte Blanche poster project. It recomposes and questions the under-stretched filial alliance between the two continents: "False Twins" or "True Sisters"?
Chia-Wen Tsai's Taï-Chi installation alternately projects images of Asian and African dancers in the airy, voluptuous motion of rice cooker steam.
Georges Vikey, painter and Pop Soul & Careta Music musician, presents a live show inviting the audience to join in the dance on the theme of the Rice Seed.Kimiko Yoshida, presents La Mariée Billie Holiday with an ashetu headdress from the Grasslands, Cameroon. Self-portrait. The artist sees identity as a multiplicity of identifications, and art as an experience of pure transformation.
Loïs Zongo plays percussion on Akutuk water, an African musical tradition that pays tribute to the spirits of nature and the purity of water - a crucial ecological issue in China.
Exhibition locations : Galerie du Buisson, Galerie Mademoiselle Lang, CFDT, Café Culturel La Barricade, Galerie Contexts, Local Chinois de France - Français de Chine
Associations : Cafézoïde, Chinois de France – Français de Chine, Compagnie Djilli ou les arts métissés, France, Chine Cultures, Mémoire de l’avenir, Sirius Productions, Yaadal
Performance and workshop locations: Piscine Alfred Nakache, Centre d'animation Rébeval, Résidence Pauline Roland, Restaurant Jiangxi
In partnership with : Afriphoto / Association Belleville Social Club / Association des commerçants bellevillois / êtrecontemporain? / Fonds de dotation agnès b. / L'épicerie Wing Seng / La Librairie des Orgues / Paris Macadam / Revue Hommes et Migrations / Rouleau de Printemps
Thanks to : Association Belleville Social Club, Association des commerçants bellevillois, Galerie Continua (Aurélie Tiffreau, Francesca Spano), Caroline Hancock, commissaire d'art, Michel Lacasse, Adjoint au Maire du 18e, Alain Mabanckou, Rouleau de Printemps, elected officials of the Mairie du 19e in particular Séverine Guy, Xavier Golczyk, Adama Daouda Kouadio.