Notebook 10, l'enfance de sanbras
2021 - Installation (Installation)
25 x 12 cm
Kelly Sinnapah Mary
Notebook 10 , l ‘enfance de sanbras (The Childhood of Sanbras) series by Kelly Sinnapah Mary is a sequel to an earlier series by the artist titled Cahier d’un non retour au pays natal (2015). This earlier work considers the process of reconstructing an identity of the Indian workers who arrived in the Caribbean during the post-slavery period. The work addresses the conditions of recruitment of these Indian workers, the strategies of the recruiters, how they lured them onto ships to bring them back to the plantations. Inspired by two authors, Aime Cesaire and Khal Torabully, the artist reinterprets masterworks of Caribbean literature. The Childhood of Sanbras series approaches another axis of reflection wherein Sinnapah Mary engages with her experiences and memories as a child, and the characters she identified with, while exploring current stories about the Indian diaspora in the French West Indies. Working with the concept of memory, her notebooks function like diaries in which characters take form and retell a story through drawings and sculptures that refer to a ludic universe of children. The series introduces the stories of Sanbras, a little girl in a school uniform and braids—an element so present in the artist’s practice that serves as a metaphor for the construction of identity through the gesture of braiding. The artist’s narrative mixes elements of Caribbean culture, Maroons, and Hinduism. Sanbras, in some of the works, has extra arms, legs, or a third eye. The little girl meets other friends throughout the story and builds a community. This resilient new village formed by Sanbras is a reference to the Marronage, of which she is part and wishes to build a new ecosystem. In the sculptures that accompany the notebooks, the artist explores Sanbras in a more material and corporeal manner, giving another dimension to the character through an ingenuous naivety.
Kelly Sinnapah Mary is a multidisciplinary artist who’s work is informed by the diasporic journey of her ancestors. She is the descendant of indentured laborers sent from India to Guadeloupe by the French Government in the 19th century to replace the free labor of the transatlantic slave trade. Sinnapah Mary’s practice reflects on her Indo-Caribbean identity by unpacking the details of her ancestors’ middle passage to Guadeloupe. Through the lens of science fiction, she often explores the so-called feminine universe; working with floral themes, soft materials, and fairy tales, using techniques that contrast the poignant and politically charged subject matter she addresses. From this friction, Sinnapah Mary traces her ethnic heritage, while questioning her roots as someone caught in two nested worlds—confronting concepts of ‘negritude’ and ‘coolitude’. ‘Coolie’, an expression coined by Caribbean poet Khal Torabully, is a pejorative name given to Indians who migrated to the Caribbean.
Colors:
Related works sharing similar palette
© » SLASH PARIS
A Change of Perspective — Ndayé Kouagou — Frac île-de-france, le Plateau — Exposition — Slash Paris Connexion Newsletter Twitter Facebook A Change of Perspective — Ndayé Kouagou — Frac île-de-france, le Plateau — Exposition — Slash Paris Français English Accueil Événements Artistes Lieux Magazine Vidéos Retour A Change of Perspective — Ndayé Kouagou Exposition Film, performance, techniques mixtes, vidéo À venir Ndayé Kouagou, A coin is a coin, 2022 © Ndayé Kouagou A Change of Perspective Ndayé Kouagou Dans 2 mois : 21 septembre 2023 → 18 février 2024 Emblématique des artistes de sa génération, Ndayé Kouagou n’établit pas de hiérarchie entre ses différentes pratiques articulées autour du langage...
© » KADIST
Anthony Goicolea
2008Goicolea has made drawings based on a family album of relations that he did not know but who in one way or another contributed to his history and to the predicament in which he now finds himself as a Cuban in America...
© » KADIST
Matthieu Saladin
2016L’effeuillage des effacements (The Stripping of Erasures) 2016, presents a piles of posters gathered in decreasing chronological order from 2015 to 2400 B...
© » KADIST
On the occasion of publishing A Partial Taxonomy of Linear Ornament — Both Established and Original — Organized by Shape, Symmetry, Dimension, Iteration and Projection— Including Extrude the Extrusion and Ornament as Entheogen, Tauba Auerbach discusses a range of topics, from topology to gesture, Traditional Chinese Medicine, architecture and (a)symmetry...
© » KADIST
Shi Guowei
Through a hand-painting process, Shi Guowei created Manufactured Landscape ...
© » KADIST
Saturday, January 20, 2023, 1.30 pm (off-site) Performance by Duto Hardono, Variation & Improvisation for ‘In Harmonia Progressio’ (2017) at the Asian Art Museum Presented at and in collaboration with the Asian Art Museum, as part of Speculative Fabulation: New Voices, New Stories at the Asian Art Museum Friday, February 2, 2024, 7–9 pm The Fugue of the Cicada Songs An evening of sound performances organized in collaboration with Cone Shape Top, on the occasion of the launch of de montañas submarinas el fuego hace islas : Reader Volume Two co-published with Sming Sming Books Thursday, February 8, 2024, 5 pm (off-site) Yina Jiménez Suriel in conversation with Natalia Brizuela, Professor of Film & Media and Spanish & Portuguese Presented at and in collaboration with the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies: 2334 Bowditch St, Berkeley, CA 94720 Wednesday, February 10, 2024, available to view on KADIST.tv from February 19, 2024 (this program takes place off-site and online) de montañas submarinas el fuego hace islas , screening program co-curated by Yina Jiménez Suriel and Arianna Mercado at MCAD Manila – Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Manila de montañas submarinas el fuego hace islas , reader A bi-lingual reader, co-published with Sming Sming Books, with the support of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, University of California, Berkeley will be available in February 2024...
© » KADIST
Nikita Kadan
2013Ukraine is under tension due to the politics of President lanoukovitch since 2010...
© » KADIST
Otobong Nkanga
2008Born in 1974, Kano, Nigeria, Otobong Nkanga lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium...
© » SLASH PARIS
Mouvement 1 — Exposition performative — Système D — Exhibition — Slash Paris Login Newsletter Twitter Facebook Mouvement 1 — Exposition performative — Système D — Exhibition — Slash Paris English Français Home Events Artists Venues Magazine Videos Back Previous Next Mouvement 1 — Exposition performative Exhibition Performance, sound - music Upcoming Graphisme : clarahoya.ch Mouvement 1 Exposition performative In 2 days: February 14 → 23, 2024 Mouvement 1 est une exposition performative où rien n’est immuable...