Tribes
Burkina Faso, 2012-2013
"Tribes" is a collection of artworks (masks, clothings, objects, drawings, photographs...) that I started in Burkina Faso at the end of 2012. I was invited there by the French Institute to exhibit and give a lecture about the distinction between artist and craftsman. I then developed this questioning in a practical way, during one year, through various collaborations, with sculptors, bronziers, couturiers...
Inspired by the aesthetics and museography associated with African societies, especially as primitive arts, this series features imaginary tribes. Behind their realistic and traditional appearance, the "Smahili", "Guem Boï" or "Unisébu" tribes are in fact pure chimeras, referring to rootless or virtual communities. I imagined them by indulging in a telescoping of universes deemed antagonistic, whereas in fact the hybridizations are already in progress.
