The exhibition “Passager” brings together four artists whose work explores the issues of the migration crisis. Through conceptual practices, performative or figurative processes, these artists bear witness to this suspended time in which history has not yet decided.
We are not objects subject to some fate, but conscious and deadly passengers acting on this planet. We are depositories and passers of experiences, of knowledge, exchanging in projections their questions, their ambitions, their ideas, dreams and ideals, their struggles and struggles to advance in resonance, by our shared unities.
Albert Jacquard, August 2013.
The ground installation of driftwood and water of Maguy Banq, invites us to follow the journey strewn with sometimes fatal pitfalls of the refugees. The gaze of the observer, distanced from its height, arises on these characters of bronzes. They seem very fragile. Loins. However, if we come closer we can discover, the human bonds that are woven in the face of adversity. Solidarity. Friendship. The artist has chosen to shift the balance towards what is best in us.
Of Senegalese origin, Mouhamadou Moustapha Diop, is an actor and witness to this flow of populations. Videographer, painter, this 34-year-old artist colored migratory flights. Poetic allegory where the birds cross fields of barbed wire, surmount the walls of cement. On the canvases, some unintelligible words of a confused thought invite us to decipher the incoherence and chaos that leave motionless, perhaps lifeless, these volatile, icons of freedom.
Symbol of walking, the foot is at the heart of the works of Marco Cordero. We find its imprint, carved in a book, mountain of knowledge, wisdom, which stands out on a horizon where the words appear in the dawn of a new day. We turn around the carpet of books, the one where we wipe our feet, the one who welcomes our guests at the entrance of the houses. A large gaping canyon cuts out. Dizzying.
The photographic series «Who deserves our lifejackets?» By Nicolas Demeersman, plays with the glossy paper of the magazines. The collection of lifejackets comes in printed fabrics ranging from African wax to Louis Vuitton logo. Worn or disembodied. The one-size-fits-all vests are presented on the walls of the Gallery. They seem to be the trophies of a merciless battle.