Inspired by the novel “ Me Tituba black witch of Salem “, by the famous Guadeloupean author Maryse Condé, a historical fiction which focuses on the experience of a woman from Barbados within the slave world of the 17th century, the exhibition ” Tituba, who to protect us? » revolves around spiritual protection and offers a poetic and spiritual reflection around mourning and memory. An immersion in the invisible links between past and present. Tituba is invoked here as a protective figure and a narrative symbol which accompanies the dialogue between the works presented.
A sensory and immersive experience
This exhibition which features paintings, films, photographs, installations imagined and created by eleven artists from the African and Caribbean diasporas, including the works of Guadeloupean artists Naomi Lulendo, also Franco-Congolese, and Claire Zaniolo, sheds light on the questions of mourning, memory and ancestrality. “This project is understood as a sensory and immersive experience which is inspired by an atmosphere of ceremony or vigil allowing the visitor to enter a more receptive mode facing alternative and interior universes”, confides the curator and curator of the exhibition, Amandine Nana.
This is evidenced by the songs and prayers in the video work of the Haitian artist Myriam Charles which accompany the visitor’s journey, the Afro-Caribbean symbolisms developed by the American-Haitian artist Abigail Lucien which establish a link between culture and shared memory or again the work of the Congolese and Guadeloupean photographer and visual artist Naomi Lulendo on the figure of “ Potomitan », a notion which designates both the central column of a voodoo temple and the protective maternal figure in Creole culture.
Dialogue between literature and visual arts
In this exhibition, it is also a question of transatlantic struggles like the Haitian revolution to which the Russian-Ghanaian photographer Liz Johnson Artur explores with her piece “ Time Don’t Run Here » the question of protection, death and the role that this plays in understanding political struggles, while for her part the London artist and poet Rhéa Dillon is interested in the emotional charge that objects carry with her work “ A Caribbean Ossuary » (A Caribbean ossuary). We also find this dialogue between historical and contemporary issues in the work of the Guadeloupean multidisciplinary artist Claire Zaniolo who explores photography as a space of memory with the creation of this contemporary family album to be passed on as a legacy.
« Tituba, who to protect us ? » also offers a dialogue between literature and visual arts in reference to the novel by Maryse Condé who knew how to find the right words. “ I wanted to show how, from literature to the visual arts, dialogues are woven and enrich the same themes », pleads Amandine Nana for whom, in this exhibition, “Tituba’s words guide the visitor and thus bring him a kind of protective spirit “. There are a few days left to visit this inspiring exhibition.
E.B.
« Tituba, who to protect us ? »
Exposition collective
Until January 5, 2025 – 12 p.m. – 10 p.m.
Tokyo Palace
13, avenue du President Wilson
75116 Paris
Information : https://www.palaisdetokyo.com
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