Mondialité : Opening

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Mondialité : Opening Mondialité : Opening Conférences, interviews, lectures et performances autour de l’exposition Mondialité à la Fondation Boghossian - Villa Empain Avec Luc Tuymans, Sylvie Glissant et Genevieve Gallego, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Martin Guinard, Daniel Boyd, Raqs Media Collective et Otolith Group, Valerio Adami et Antonio Segui, Anjalika Sagar, Manthia Diawara, Paul Dujardin, Jacques Coursil, Justin Kennedy, Mârten Spângberg Modération par Hans Ulrich Obrist et Asad Raza, commissaires de l’exposition 18 avril 2017 Remarque : les annotations de type ‘57.10’ ou ‘[unclear]’ marquent les passages inaudibles ou incompréhensibles. Remark : annotations like ‘57.10’ or ‘[unclear]’ mark inaudible or incomprehensible passages. Introduction Asad Raza : The English are looking into the idea of global dialogue which is at the heart [39:41] so in that sense it’s an exhibition that tries to [39 :39-39 :50] with the concept of Mondialité, which is very much at the beginning of the show and very much hugely, you know, this is like over opting concept although we also explained or tried to look into several other former concepts from Glissant which are kind of the five organising concepts of the show. The others are Créolisation, Pensée du tremblement, Opacité and the Musée du Tout- Monde - which was an unrealised project of Glissant himself. So, we tried to give introductions to all of those things together. Anyway, we both included artists who are currently working and inspired by Glissant’s ideas and artists from Glissant’s own circle who were going to be intended in the pensée du tremblement and we also created this book which includes the work of many painters who are interested and in dialogue with these ideas. So, it was an amazing project to do. I feel very proud that Hans-Ulrich agreed to work on the project. We had collaborated many times before but this was one of the most fun and we extended certain things. We also worked together with a [drama 41:08], Ranjana Leyendecker who helped us design a kind of new way to experience these ideas in the space through kind of sound installation and so it was an adventure like Glissant says, Mondialité is an adventure also making the show Mondialité was a kind of adventure. Hans-Ulrich Obrist : Oui on m’a dit que peut-être on va peut-être faire ça bilingue donc je vais parler un peu français et ça d’ailleurs est tout à fait ce que Edouard Glissant aurait souhaité parce qu’Edouard m’a toujours dit il faut dans tout évènement au moins deux langues, idéalement encore plus. Je me rappelle souvent de ces extraordinaires soirées de poésie qu’il a organisé à la Maison de l’Amérique Latine où il a invité des poètes du monde entier à lire des poèmes sans traduction. Juste écouter la langue, comme écouter par exemple, écouter Tor Williamson en parlant en islandais, etc... etc… Ce que Glissant appelait la célébration du multilinguisme, donc par rapport à ça il faut que cette conférence de presse soit au moins bilingue. Oui donc Asad a tout dit sur la genèse du projet. Et je tiens aussi à remercier évidemment Asad pour ce dialogue formidable et la Fondation Boghossian pour ce dialogue formidable. C’est un complexe extraordinaire pour faire cette exposition. J’ai toujours cru en l’intimité des maisons, des institutions d’art à l’échelle d’une maison, qu’on peut 42.37-42.41 Ce qu’on a fait ici. On ne pouvait pas avoir un contexte plus idéal que cette Villa extraordinaire. D’autant plus, comme Asad a dit, que la mission de cet endroit est le dialogue et que la mission de cet endroit est d’une certaine façon la « Mondialité » comme Glissant l’a dit. Donc le contexte est absolument idéal. Moi j’ai rencontré la pensée de Glissant la première fois à travers Alighiero Boetti quand j’avais 17 ans, parce que j’ai rencontré Boetti quand j’étais lycéen et Boetti m’a parlé de cette idée parce que, évidemment, il était très intéressé par rapport à son travail de penser le monde et il m’a dit qu’il était très inspiré par un penseur de Martinique qui s’appelle Edouard Glissant. Ça a pris plusieurs années après pour moi pour le rencontrer. C’est d’ailleurs grâce à Agnès b. à Paris que j’ai pu le rencontrer en personne et que cette amitié de 15 ans jusqu’à sa mort a commencé. On s’est parlé toutes les semaines. On a fait beaucoup de voyages ensemble. On a fait avec Sylvie Glissant qui d’ailleurs sera là aujourd’hui… Plus tard aujourd’hui… La veuve d’Edouard et lui on a fait de nombreuses conférences et dans d’autres expositions, comme Utopia Station et, à travers ces années on a multiplié évidemment les interviews, les enregistrements qui servent un peu de base, toutes ces interviews que j’ai fait avec lui, inédites, ont un peu servi comme base pour cette exposition qu’on a fait ici, une exposition avec Asad, qu’on a vraiment commencé à penser au moment de la mort d’Edouard, ce qui a pris plusieurs années dans le «making ». Ce que l’exposition essaye de montrer c’est peut-être la chose la plus urgente. C’est pourquoi Edouard Glissant aujourd’hui ? Et je pense que de manière très prémonitoire, Glissant avait prévu que les forces de la globalisation que nous vivons. Ce n’est pas la première fois que le monde expérimente une globalisation. Il y a eu une globalisation avec l’Empire Romain. Il y a eu de nombreux moments précédents de la globalisation. Mais c’est sans doute le moment le plus extrême, peut-être aussi le plus violent de la globalisation et comme Glissant a dit : « Ceci nous amène à des forces homogénéisantes qui risquent de nous mener vers une extinction. » Une extinction non seulement de culture puisqu’il y a beaucoup de langues qui disparaissent, 45.13 a fait un film formidable sur ça, sur la disparition des langues. Mon Instagram par exemple est dédié à célébrer l’écriture à la main. Glissant a dit l’écriture à la main est menacée donc toutes ces sortes de phénomènes culturels qui risquent de disparaitre. Mais Glissant était très prémonitoire parce qu’il a très tôt vu, par rapport à son concept de « mondialité » que la contre réaction, contre ces forces homogénéisantes de la globalisation qui mène à l’extinction non seulement de cultures mais aussi d’espèces. Elisabeth Colbert nous dit que nous sommes au milieu de la sixième extinction. Mais Glissant a très tôt prévu que la contre réaction contre ces forces homogénéisantes sera encore pire. Et c’est ce que nous pouvons voir dans le monde d’aujourd’hui, avec des nouvelles formes de séparation, de nouvelles formes de manque de tolérance, les nouvelles formes de racisme, d’isolation, qui apparaissent un peu partout dans le monde, et comme dit Etel Adnan, poète, artiste, qui fait aussi partie de l’exposition et qui connaissait bien Glissant. Il disait : « le monde a besoin de Togetherness », de ensemble et pas de séparation, d’amour et pas de suspicion, de futur commun et pas d’isolation. Donc Glissant a très tôt vu ces deux choses. Il a vu l’homogénéisation de la globalisation, et il a vu ces dangers d’une contre réaction. Contre la globalisation il a dit qu’il s’agit de résister aux deux et il s’agit donc de trouver une sorte de troisième chemin qu’il a appelé la « Mondialité ». La » Mondialité » étant donc un dialogue global, un dialogue qui vers ce qu’Etel appelle « togetherness ». Il va vers un futur commun mais tout en prenant en conscience, en prenant note des différences locales. C’est pour cette raison que ça nous parait aujourd’hui en 2017 plus urgent que jamais avant, de célébrer la pensée d’Edouard Glissant. Moi je pense que tout le monde devrait lire Edouard Glissant. Il est très important qu’il y ait plus de traductions, puisque l’œuvre reste finalement très peu traduite. Si nous regardons les dizaines de livres que Glissant a publié en France et, c’est d’ailleurs très choquant si vous allez à Paris qu’on ne trouve toujours pas ses livres dans les librairies. Il y a une sorte d’extraordinaire invisibilité. Je fais toujours cet exercice quand je suis à Paris. Dès que je vois une librairie j’y entre et je demande s’ils ont des livres d’Edouard Glissant et c’est à chaque fois une catastrophe donc… Voilà il faut absolument que la pensée de Glissant soit plus présente, puisque c’est vraiment une boîte à outils pour notre monde aujourd’hui. Dans une deuxième partie je voulais parler un tout petit peu de la méthodologie qu’on a donc appliqué pour faire cette exposition. Comme Asan et moi on l’a dit on est parti de cette archive. Et la gageure c’est toujours comment peut-on présenter une archive sans que cela soit ennuyeuse ou morte, parce qu’il faut d’une certaine façon faire une résurrection de ce matériau. Et c’est pour cette raison que la dramaturgie est très importante, et nous tenons vraiment à remercier de tout cœur Ranjana Leyendecker qui a passé des semaines ici à Bruxelles avec nous. Ranjana a développé une chorégraphie, vous allez voir la voix de Glissant et certain commentaires qu’Asad et moi on a pu faire pour expliquer l’exposition vont vous accompagner. Et d’ailleurs l’exposition commence par un de ces films que j’ai fait de Glissant comme introduction dès qu’on entre dans La Villa Empain.
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