Solo exhibition pluie sur mer at the Grand Café, Saint-Nazaire, 2022
L'Oubli présent, lectures tracées, installation with ceramic, cotton threads, burnt wood, coarse salt, planking (used boat wood), printing on fabric, dried banana tree "trunk", banana flower
Production Le Grand Café - contemporary art center, Saint-Nazaire
Many cultures have imagined shapes by connecting certain stars with imaginary lines. Everything is a sign: constellations have been used for celestial and terrestrial navigation, as well as to guide sailors. Associated with myths, they have also been invested with the power to read destiny.
Why does the farthest reach the closest? This seems to be the question Minia Biabiany poses as she reclaims the language of constellations. Printed on fabric, her drawings evoke a history where we encounter plants with healing properties, symbols of emancipatory political movements, La Soufrière, the volcano that has accompanied the artist since childhood and animals. These constellations are connected by cotton threads to small ceramic pieces, shaped either geometrically or drawn from myth, depicting figures such as a mermaid, a fish, or a uterus.
On the ground, large undulating lines resemble the depth contours of nautical charts. Made of coarse salt a material of purification and preservation. These reliefs disrupt our movements, inviting a careful and deliberate approach.
The artist also integrates charred wooden sculptures that resemble mental doorways, engaging with memory. Here, Minia Biabiany references the ties connecting Guadeloupe to theAfrican continent and Gorée Island, known as the largest slave trade center on the African coast. Today, Gorée houses a vast memorial complex, including the Door of No Return, commemo- rating the deportation of millions of enslaved people.
But Minia Biabiany’s doors are not without return. Adorned with black beads, punctuated with openings, and crossed by taut threads like ropes, they are doors that speak of forgetting, which is inseparable from the act of remembering. They are doors that, once again, bring the earth and the sky closer together.
© Marc Domage