🌿 The doors of Alliance open, unveiling a lush, plant-filled world. This extraordinary exhibition by Emmanuelle Briat, which emerged from a one-month residency in Gambia, promises a unique and captivating experience.
Note of intent :
This exhibition is structured around several volumes and sculptures in the grounds of Alliance Française, combined with a plant-based scenography in the gallery.
The idea is to explore plants through links, lianas and movement, to invite us to take a closer look at botanical curiosities, to underline the link that unites us with living things.
The exhibition is made up of various plants and materials collected in the Parc de l’Alliance, in the bush and on the beach (bamboos, lianas, shells, marine ropes, roots, various plants, etc.). The flexibility and ability of these plants to form curves guided my project.
The hymenocallis, Spider lily, is one of my favorite flowers, with its white petals and delicious fragrance. It is present in the park and to find it again after all its years in Europe was a great pleasure.
Several of my latest pieces are inspired by spiders.
A stroll along the beach at Leybato led me to discover a plethora of beautifully colored shells in shades of red and orange. I also collected fragments of marine rope from local fishing and trawling boats. Ropes that break, links that separate. Ropes used to fish, to feed families, huge ropes from trawlers that plunder the ocean to the detriment of local populations. Looking at the ropes, we can imagine the imbalance, the unfair competition between the factories of the sea and the local fishermen, who sometimes no longer have enough fish for themselves, who sometimes give up fishing to try and escape to Europe with their pirogues. Ties that are breaking.
Practical information:
From June 27 to August 20
Alliance’s open hours
Exhibition hall
Free entry