braids 2022
Braids 2022 is a multidisciplinary initiative, combining writing, recordings of audio testimonials, photography, installations, iconographic research. This research and creation work is a continuation and deepening of my recent creation " Tresses/Montréal ",
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produced during a one-month residency from November 15 to December 15, 2020, at the Center des Arts de La Maison d'Haïti, located in the Saint-Michel district of Montreal.
On this occasion, a performance was performed behind a bay window, facing the street, during which 255 linear meters of artificial hair were braided. The purpose gave rise to a sculpture 5 meters high, made using the technique of braiding synthetic hair mats imported from China. This artificial hair, raw material used in the development of African hairstyles, from the tradition of braiding mats, are also markers of the presence of an African and Afro-descendant community in the urban centers of the planet.
The braiding of mats refers to a ritual of cohesion of the social group, through hairdressing, requiring long hours of work and consolidating the intergenerational bonds of women.
It is also a question of assembling elements of understanding on the economic, commercial, sociological aspects linked to the globalization of the fashion phenomenon, embodied by synthetic hair and the activity of braiding.
It echoes the performances of the French artist -Haitian Elodie Barthélémy.
Braids also pays homage to the work on the female, Caribbean body of the Cuban visual artist, Ana Mandieta, who through her performances has underlined the political and identity issues.
This work offers a new look at a millennial tradition, rarely valued in the field of visual arts, as in that of theory and art history.
It is a contribution to the current questioning, on a conception of hegemonic, Eurocentric art, inherited from the Italian Renaissance. This fragmented and discriminating vision of beauty, goodness and truth, has ruled out popular practices, those relating to ordinary daily life, to the work of women, as well as that of indigenous and/or colonized peoples.
The theory and history of art, as taught in the universities of the North, focused on the explanation of finished objects, bearing a certifiable and negotiable market value. It has more or less made room for creative processes, rituals, practices, gestures and above all ephemeral, such as braiding. Through this project, the aim is to explore the aesthetic, sociological and historical dimensions of the braid. Kinky hair, its instrumentalization through colonial, post-colonial history, if they do not constitute the main object of our reflection, are nevertheless one of the underlying axes, evoked in a recurring way through the testimonials of twenty Montreal women who voluntarily collaborated in our project. This blog presents the results of bibliographic and iconographic research, supplemented by the interviews of the participants.
In my artistic practice, I use the action of braiding for the aesthetic quality of the gestural vocabulary that is specific to it. In addition, the synthetic fiber of artificial hair, offers me infinite possibilities of chromatic combinations, textures associated with a variety of hair accessories, ribbons, pearls, bars that I exploit in my permanent or ephemeral creations. Video and photography being added to it, the braid finished object, metamorphoses indefinitely.
In terms of personal experience, the braid is first, my connection with my mother and my Haitian childhood. This ritual took place twice a day, morning and evening and lasted more than half an hour. As an adult, I wore braids twice. It is a source of inspiration.
AICA SC Member
08/14/2022