Mamelles Ancestrales, 2019
video installation: single channel digital video with custom sourced stones
duration: 45:45 minutes
Courtesy the artist & Goodman Gallery
Presentation at the 23rd Biennale of Sydney was made possible with generous assistance from the Embassy of France in Australia and L’Institut français
Tabita Rezaire describes herself as an ‘artist, devotee, yogi, doula, and farmer’s apprentice’. Living in a rainforest outside Cayenne in French Guyana, she is currently studying agriculture and developing a new healing centre for the arts and sciences of the earth, body and sky called AMAKABA. Designed as a self-sustainable system, AMAKABA will include an ecologically run cacao farm, a yoga centre, an observatory, and a system of doula birthing support for new parents.
‘AMAKABA is guided by the wisdom of the Amazonian rainforest… our ambition is to contribute to a more conscious and responsible way of living and being, and to respond creatively to the many challenges we face.’
– Tabita Rezaire
Rezaire’s work Mamelles Ancestrales draws inspiration from African understandings of the cosmos and its ancient stone circle monuments, thought to be the oldest astronomical sites on earth. The artist visits four important stone circle sites: Sine Ngayene and Wanar in Senegal, and Wassu and Kerbatch in the Central River Region of The Gambia. The work explores debates surrounding people’s knowledge of these mysterious structures, questioning whether contemporary scientific and archaeological explanations should get priority over spiritual and cultural interpretations.
Deep Down Tidal, 2017
HD video, colour, sound
18:44 mins
Courtesy the artist & Goodman Gallery
Presentation at the 23rd Biennale of Sydney was made possible with generous assistance from the Embassy of France in Australia and l’Institut français
‘Deep Down Tidal navigates the ocean as a graveyard for Black knowledge and technologies. From Atlantis, to the ‘Middle passage’, or refuge seekers presently drowning in the Mediterranean, the ocean abyss carries pains, lost histories and memories while simultaneously providing the global infrastructure for our current telecommunications.
Could the violence of the Internet – inflicted upon Africa and more generally Black people lie in its physical architecture?
Research suggests that water has the ability to memorize and copy information, disseminating it through its streams. What data is our world’s water holding? Beyond trauma, water keeps myriad of deep secrets, from its debated origin, its mysterious sea life of mermaids, water deities, and serpent gods, to the aquatic ape theory.
Deep Down Tidal enquires the complex cosmological, spiritual, political and technological entangled narratives sprung from water as an interface to understand the legacies of colonialism.’
Entire text is a quote from Tabita Rezaire’s Artist Statement
