ESCALE Art Residence Project in Mauritius 2022 23

ESCALE Project in Mauritius 2022

MYTHS AND REALITY

Art Residence Project 4 - 2022/23 An interactive artistic encounter.

ISLANDS – MYTHS AND REALITY

Art Residency Project 4 - 2022/23: An interactive artistic encounter proposed by Escale

A recent visit to my native Mauritius, coupled with being sunken back upon my return to Germany into the SARS-COV-2 emergency situation that has been and is still generating confinement restrictions as well as growing chaos, confusion and uncertainties worldwide, has projected me into multi-fold reflections. As a native islander and artist, one thought seemed to be recurrently coming to my mind about the idiosyncrasy of islands being all of a sudden symbolically paired to these shaken times where unicity and fragmentation overlap and mingle as never before in some sort of ritual dance.

Hence, this invitation to attend Escale’s fourth Art Residence project in Mauritius in 2022: an independent initiative to gather artists from all disciplines and from all the world for four weeks of reflection, exchange and creation around the theme “islands – Myth and Reality”.

Historical background, definitions and concepts

islands have long been - and still are, maybe thanks to tourism and travels that have reduced distance - a somewhat mystical subject. A good friend of mine considers that lakes are “inland islands” and clouds, “islands in the sky”; medically speaking, for anatomy scholars, “island” is the name given to detached portion of tissue or group of cells.

Besides, throughout history and civilisations, by means of endless writings, poems, drawings and narrations passed along to us in different forms, from Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, thomas More’s Utopia, passing through Odysseus’s ithaca and later, Napoleon’s exile on Saint-Helen, islands have always represented far-away exotic myths, half-way between imagination and mystery, becoming themselves a source of perceptions, thoughts, sensations and fantasies. Classical tales of empires set on islands pictured local indigenous inhabitants as dumb, invisible, submissive savages or barbarians awaiting to be conquered and civilised. What was then central to “island discourses” and the way islands were viewed had to do, at first, with what was being brought in and with the fantastical resources to be discovered there.

taking a big leap forward in history, from a Euro-centred perspective which has largely prevailed, for good and for bad, on the evolution of our world as it is now known - without obviously dismissing other important historical processes and events that have also impacted on this evolution -, the long history of explorations and conquests culminated in the “Colonisation” process, mainly but not only by European nations, in the XIXth and XXth centuries. throughout the heights of colonisation, especially by the French and British Empires, colonial islands were considered as lands needed for territorial expansion but also and mainly as places of new opportunities and new adventures, in opposition to the fatigued, eroded “mother countries”. Without entering here into the debate about pros and cons of the process, we will stress the fact that the colonisation of islands was different from other forms of occupations: it was not only about territorial conquer, about occupying the space, but also and mainly about settlement, about transforming the island to the colonisers’ image and will. And it was the colonisers’ mastery of technical and, later, technological skills and tools and, with the “Decolonisation” process that ensued in the mid-XXth century, their financial power, that gave them different claims on and views about the islands conquered.

Today that we are being catapulted into an unprecedented world emergency scenario with a great variety of local responses all mostly aligned on the global instructions provided, we are conscious of the variety of forces that operate on a global scale and have become increasingly aware that everyday that goes by, everything and everyone on Earth has become more inter-connected, as though this global oneness is starting to undermine and change the forms and structure of our nations, our economies, our societies and our cultures, and hence our whole finite world as we have always known it until now. So, in what way do islands exist now? What do they represent?Have all borders been submerged by the rising tide of globalisation? Can individuality still exist in an era of globality and fast communications?

Islands’ contradictions: dichotomies fusioned…

in spite of the ups and downs of History, islands, no matter their size, seem to be where the planet ends. And furthermore, they are the clear manifestations of a colourful blend of dichotomies and dualities: infinite and finite, oneness and individuality, globality and isolation, eternity and counted time, dreams and catastrophes, paradise and prison, yin and yang, coexisting together in a never-ending dance… Both concentrated microcosms of the world and diluted spaces: scaled-down reproductions of the universe with its countless possibilities and impossibilities, bringing and holding the world together and at the same time, escaping from it.

Borders also take a specific meaning when it comes to islands: nothing more finite and at the same time diluted than fluid borders, water everywhere, strange mysterious limited boundaries that keep us captive while opening you us to unlimited, wide open horizons. Hence, this profound contradiction that both islanders and travellers deeply feel: a sense of us all being “islands” ourselves and of us all being “one” at the same time.

And these always present dualities of the island condition both unite and differentiate islanders from other continental-born populations. Being closed isolated worlds inevitably turned outwards and probably “wishing for the wings of a swallow” (Richard Burton), maybe in a mystic quest for “oneness”, islands often intuitively build extroverted bridges and develop an accrued sense of generosity, kindness and hospitality, bringing about in turn yet another duality characteristic of islanders, something more difficult to detect or observe by foreigners: some kind of secret sadness and pain which we rarely share and which is in itself produced by our microcosmic isolation and solitude amidst the joyful crowds of guests visiting us. Pushed to its limits, it is this duality that has caused many of us to leave our islands for other broader lands and continents following an idea that this is where the important things of life happen.

the more ethnically diverse the islands, the stronger the disturbing consciousness and experimentation of these existing dualities and differences, and the greater the metaphysical need of humans, and even more of artists, to constantly question their origins, their imagery, their purpose and the meaning of their lives.

… transcended by arts and culture

With globalisation and fast real-time communications, the frontiers of culture and arts are not as stable as they once were and like the networks of power, they have become more complex and diffuse. However, it is through arts and culture, shared and exchanged, that conflictive dualities and differences of all sorts can be smoothed and harmoniously conjugated.

Art thus becomes a moving circuit between internal and external references offering both pictorial substance and mental associations. the “language” of art produces visual words able to scrape away and wash out all ethnic, social and religious differences, since it is in itself the language of all that is and all that is not. American science, nature and travel writer David Quammen, author of “the Song of the Dodo”, wrote that “islands are havens and breeding grounds for the unique and anomalous. They are natural laboratories of extravagant evolutionary experimentation”, obviously going metaphorically beyond the explicit evolutionist nature of the comment.

in fact, “the arts” go beyond the limits of a list. Like a chain, one discipline often blends into another, encouraging creativity, cross-inventions, reinterpretations, new births, fusions. And whether through isolation or enclosure, islands encourage human creativity. Sometimes, art goes out on the streets to meet us. At other times, we will need to go and find it. Sometimes, we need to stay still and watch, look or listen. At other times, we will be invited to join in. All scenarios apply: art ends up finding us.

Conclusion

With the richness of its multicultural social fabric and traditions, its well conserved remains and monuments of several landmarks of its history and different cultures from its discovery to now, its spectacular natural sceneries and peaceful turquoise seas, its relatively easy going modern lifestyle, its small size that can be easily covered, Mauritius is a very seductive and attractive place to host Art Residence Project 4. it is a land used to deal with external influences, having both been a French and a British colony, and independence achieved in 1968 has since brought upon economic development and changes that have become part of the country’s identity and culture, in spite of the disruptions that may be generated today due to the current health crisis. Citing British writer and poet, Lawrence Durrell, islands exist because “they are places where different destinies can meet and intersect in the full isolation of time”.

i am therefore pleased to extend this invitation to you, fully convinced that artistic initiatives become more needed and thrive more naturally in troubled times, and that this gathering will provide the introspection and the extroversion required for happy and fruitful exchanges, open sharing and reflection and productive creativity.

The where and when in Mauritius 2022/23

Residencie Date: 15 dec 2022-15 jan 2023

Exhibition Date: 7th to 15th January 2023

the place for the residency and the place for the final show are very crucial points in the organization. the youth centre Pt Jerome, that we have been visiting lately, presents a perfect solution for its geographical situation, as well as for the workshop and the final show. the project will involve and concern many different institutions, art as well as education, tourisme and any main Mauritian public. the last ESCALE Projects were all positive in giving Mauritius artists the opportunities and contacts of exchange and participation in international art shows, as well in Asia or Europe. Escale projects aim to include local involvement. We are looking forward to all possible local interaction to the project.

Organizers and support

ESCALE, international artist group: online information: http://escale1.free.fr/

Contact of the founder of ESCALE Manou Soobhany.

the french association SPRAY, based in Marseille, France. SPRAY was founded in 2001 by some of the participant artists of ESCALE in order to organize ESCALE workshops and give it an official portail. Since then SPRAY administers the organization of some of the ESCALE’s international artist’s projects. SPRAY is receiving public support of the town council of Marseille.

Prime Ministre Office Mauritius

Ministre of tourism Mauritius

Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sports and Recreation Mauritius

Ministry of Arts and Cultural Heritage Mauritius

National Art Gallery Mauritius

Santral Art, Mauritius

Association PARtAGE – Flic en Flac, Mauritius: Mauritian non profit artist organisation, founded 2003.

Part of the international triangle Network.

iMAAYA Art Galery - the Cubicle 35-37 Royal road, Phoenix, A 10, Vacoas-Phoenix, Mauritius