Françoise Soulé Zinsou Duressé
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  • projects
    • HERMAFRODEK 2019- >
      • the watchers
      • magiciens de la terre
      • afro hair portraits
      • souffle sur moi
      • black girl in search of her god
      • les jumeaux papillons
      • unquiet grave
    • UNTOUCHABLES 2005- >
      • paperbag test
      • afrolandscape
      • words become butterflies
      • dance with me
      • je suis ce que je suis
      • we are all the same under the sky
      • vagabonds of the caribbean
      • you are so smart
    • Pain/T 2001- >
      • Pain/T
  • resources
    • artist statement
    • biography
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My current project, Hermafrodek, a large-scale multimedia installation combining film, sculpture, staged-performance, sound design, video painting and drawing, features: 1. a three-channel video projection of my performance of the Dance of the Warrior, also know as the Petro-Magi Vodou Dance, a dance that is intimately associated with the 1791 Haitian revolution; 2. 549 afroed hermaphrodite Vodou mobile sculptures representing Beninese goddesses of fertility; 3. 30 additional sculptures hanging within copper-lined wooden boxes; 4. a digitized 3D projection of the Vodou mobile sculptures themselves and humanoid holograms; 5. 99 fragmented sculptures piled up in a corner of the space: they are meant to evoke Kafka's ghostly character Odradek, as does the title of the installation, which is also a pun on the afro hair the Vodou mobile sculptures hang from and their hermaphroditism; 6. 18 framed afro hair portrait-like objects; 7. video paintings and drawings that conjure Benin's magical kingdom of twins, Vodou goddesses and gods names and female genital mutilation; 8. film strips embroidered with Afrofuturistic characters emblematic of resilience and compliance; and 9. an acoustic environment of experimental sounds. I perform the dance and create the sounds, sculptures, holograms, text and film, merging the different media to produce a unique kind of spectacle and immersive interior and exterior spaces, in which the visitors may fall in a trance and become keenly aware of their otherness, as the protagonist of Kafka's story when suddenly confronted by the mysterious Odradek.




Copyright © 2006-2020 Françoise Soulé Zinsou Duressé. All Rights Reserved.

 


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  • home
  • projects
    • HERMAFRODEK 2019- >
      • the watchers
      • magiciens de la terre
      • afro hair portraits
      • souffle sur moi
      • black girl in search of her god
      • les jumeaux papillons
      • unquiet grave
    • UNTOUCHABLES 2005- >
      • paperbag test
      • afrolandscape
      • words become butterflies
      • dance with me
      • je suis ce que je suis
      • we are all the same under the sky
      • vagabonds of the caribbean
      • you are so smart
    • Pain/T 2001- >
      • Pain/T
  • resources
    • artist statement
    • biography
    • contact