In the form of a music box, a dark room in concept of a school room, Kemi Bassene demonstrates with his installation « The African Shed Laboratory », that museum archives are not only relics of a cultural body but a dynamic of artistic creation and recreation. This is a successful challenge for the contemporary artist Kemi Bassene who, from the archives of the Quai Branly Museum, has created a site that is off the lines of time.
© Tous droits réservés
© Tous droits réservés
Between school desks that present the statements of yesteryear, photos and videos scroll, and we content the history of learning; we are in the hallway suspended between recall and confidence. His installation speaks to us of renewal, an intersection between music and visual arts, between art and politics to go beyond the questioning of the past, to mark the future and to open up to an educational dialogue.
Kémi Bassène
Kémi Bassène is a photographer, musicologist and critic who explores fragments of African culture to identify intersections with cultures outside of Africa and the way Africans are perceived internationally.
His work questions readings of harmony and melody in relation to the rhythmic character of African music. He studies the relationship between cultural thoughts and melody.
His work « Nine de Bassene » was the subject of a solo exhibition at Clark House, Mumbai in 2013. Among these group exhibitions we can mention Bétonsalon in France, Migration of Gestures at Kunsthaus Graz am Universal museum Joanneum in Austria and many others.
A founding member of the artistic and editorial collective of the interactive magazine and platform for reflection on contemporary art, design and architecture on the African continent « Afrikadaa », he began learning photography at the age of seven with his grandfather Mama Casset, the first photographer to open a studio in West Africa in 1946.