Image: Jonathan Potana, Mouvement Primaire (Primary Movement), various items (clock, thermometer, holy water, radio, compass, orange, etc.) on rucksack, 2023.
Co(naître)
Show by Jonathan Potana at the Ygrec ENSAPC Art Center and POUSH
From the 29th of May till the 13th of July 2024
Opening : Saturday 25th of May, 5pm -9pm
Art curation: Guillaume Breton
Co(naître) – Co(generate) is the first solo show by the Reunion artist Johnathan Potana. He presents a set of sculptures, installations and performances over two sites in Aubervilliers: at the Ygrec ENSAPC Art Centre and at POUSH (as part of the group show Nord-Est, Cartographie des Résonnances – North-East, Mapping resonances).
With this double show, the artist has wished to forge a dialogue with the city of Aubervilliers, to work with its materials, objects and waste.
Symbolic and real links between the Reunion Island and Aubervilliers are therefore generated, whilst their colonial past is highlighted, as well as
the presence that a continuous migration constitutes on its plural identity. However, the constellation of unfolded relationships in this
exhibition does not stop at the surface of our planet, it spreads way beyond the terrestrial atmosphere to bring us near what the artist names
“cosmic considerations, primal ones devoid of edges and limits”.
A text by the curator and art historian Simona Dvorák accompanies the show.
Jonathan Potana will simultaneously develop a “living installation” on the 1st of June from 7pm till midnight at the Léon Salagnac Park in Malakoff, following an invitation by the Contemporary Art Centre of Malakoff, for Nuit Blanche 2024.
Jonathan Potana was born in 2000 in Saint-Paul, Reunion Island. He lives and works in Paris and on Reunion Island.
Graduated student in 2023 at École supérieure d’art de la Réunion (Reunion Island), he is announced laureate that same year of the ONDES programme at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris. Being the Jean-Claude Reynal prize finalist, he will receive the eco-conception Art prize 2024 organised by Art of Change 21.
Some of his shows include: : Echos du temps, refuges du temps, ( Time Echos, Time Shelters) curation Félix Duclassan, Cultural Space Sudel Fuma, Saint Paul, RE (2024) ; Éco luttes (Eco fights), curation Aude Cartier, Malakoff Contemporary Arts Center, FR (2024) ; La Mémoires des Hauts Fonds, (Memories of Shallow Waters) curation Natasa Petresin-Bachelez and Mathieu Kleyebec Abonnec, Cité internationale des arts, Paris, FR (2024) ; Corpuscules, curation Stephanie Meylon-Reinette, Emergenc’art Gallery, Petit-Bourg, GP (2024) ; Quand je suis, quand tu suis ( You and I am) , curation Jean Marc LaCaze, la Friche Centre d’arts visuels, Le Port, RE (2023) ; Acte éditorial Live, curation Pascale Obolo at Centre d’Art et de Recherche, La Box, Le Tampon, RE (2023) ; Où suis-je ? (Hommage à Bruno Latour) – Where am I? (Homage to Bruno Latour) – curation Élisa Courtois, Hang’art Gallery, Saint Pierre, RE (2023); 3Pes, curation Juan Canales Hidalgo, Centro Joanot Martorell de Marxalenes, Valence, ES (2022).
Supported by the publishing house Ter’la, he has published two monograph editions between 2021 and 2023 (Mouvement Primaire and Mouvman Primèr). He has also contributed to and published with Dokreis (GP, 2024), Mozaik Ocean Indien (RE), Afrikadaa (FR), l’ESAR research review « Magma » (RE) et le Bombas Gens Centre d’Art (ES).
Nuit Blanche 2024 – Le Baobab et les invisibles
(The Baobab and the Invisibles)
Performances by Bocar Niang and Kaloune at Ygrec ENSAPC art Centre
On the 1st of June, 5pm- 9pm
We are invited by the artists and performers Kaloune (Reunion Island) and Bocar Niang (Senegal) for a trip in space and time. We meet their ancestors, their Stories through scenic shapes as music, body, poetry and singing intertwine.
For one night and in a festive ambiance, Ygrec Art Centre will wrap around those two artists as they charge us up with energies and reanimate the works displayed in the artist Jonathan Potana’s show.
Image : Gouye © Sephora Shebabo
Bocar Niang was born in 1987 in Tambacounda, Senegal. He lives and works in Paris.
Bocar was born a griot within a griot family. He holds a master’s in arts and cultures from the Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar University and a DNSEP with the National Advanced Arts School of Paris-Cergy. He is currently working on a research and artistic creation thesis as part of the RADIAN doctoral programme.
Founder of the Griot Museum in Senegal and its branches across France, he is also, since 2008, the artistic director for the Tamba Young Talents Festival in Senegal and for the Nekkalante Festival in France since 2018.
His multidisciplinary work blending orality, writing, sculpture, installation, film, video and music has been presented, amongst others, at the Centre Pompidou, Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Fondation Pernod Ricard, Dakar Biennale, Bordeaux Metropole Biennale Panoramas, Ygrec-ENSAPC, Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers, and the Théodore Monod Museum in Dakar. He has collaborated with the Office of the Invisible Hours, Aubervilliers (2020-21) and was a Villa Medicis resident in Roma (2022-23).
Image : Madame Jaune prie pour l’argent © Kaloune / Madame Yellow prays for money © Kaloune
Kaloune was born in 1985 in Bras-Panon, Reunion Island. She lives and works in Bras-Panon.
Kaloune has always been passionate about writing and singing. After studying international law and literature in England, she set to travel in several countries in Africa where she discovered the importance of music within her artistic expression. She published Séga Bondyé Galé in 2010, an inspiration for a first show in 2014 La Fée Nwar (the Fairy Nwar ) at les Bambous Theatre. She published a second collection of poetry in 2015, Kavé la sirène ou le Rêve de Fanja (Kavé the Mermaid or Fanja’s Dream), as a homage to her mother whilst addressing themes on youth and the island cultural heritage.
In addition to her poetry, she sings in kabarés, ceremonies dedicated to the ancestors, using the mbira to recall the tones of the Reunion Island traditional chant maloya. Her work explores identity in the Reunion Island, memory and ancestralism, using music and poetry to heal the wounds of the past. Her afro-feminist activism has been rewarded with the Indian Ocean Voice Prize in 2017. She was laureate of the Indian Ocean Music Prize that same year.
