HOMO SARGASSUM PROJECT

Project summary

HOMO SARGASSUM is a travelling exhibition & an experimental documentary art film project inviting over 30 artists from the Caribbean, West Africa and Latin America, to collaborate with scientists, researchers and tech companies on a major ecological & public health challenge impacting the three regions: the SARGASSUM algae.

Artistic, poetic, scientific and technological productions will immerse the public in the marine world, for us to better understand, transform and live with the SARGASSUM. The selected productions will represent creative and concrete solutions, beyond communities, industries and borders, to contribute to building a single ecological consciousness about the space we share on this planet, through the air we breathe and the oceans we tragically pollute. Because the marine world are the lungs of our planet.

While facing the scourge mankind has produced, spectators will be embarked on an immersive journey through continents and oceans to reconnect with the underwater world, until the awakening of a HOMO SARGASSUM.

Why is this project crucial today?

The Sargassum, a seaweed without roots originally found in the Sargasso Sea, East of Florida, has become a major concern for our planet. Due to its uncontrolled proliferation caused by climate change, deforestation and human pollution originated in Brazil, this brown algae is now releasing toxic gases that provoke severe health and environmental damages. They cause still unexplored respiratory dysfunctions, kill marine life and have a disastrous economic impact on coastal states. 

The coronavirus pandemic has further increased the vulnerability of those who suffer from a respiratory condition or form of pollution. 

It is therefore urgent that tech companies, scientific laboratories, investors, artists & creatives be solidary and bind their minds to find solutions that can improve the lives of coastal populations living in West Africa,, the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. This exhibition and video project focuses on the shared concerns and visions between these regions, from an insular and continental point of view, while paying particular attention to under-represented communities of the Caribbean.

A multi-year & multidimensional project

VIDEO & FILM

In 2020, two videos were produced and released to present the film project: a short teaser (3') and an institutional video (8').

The premiere screening of the HOMO SARGASSUM experimental art documentary film will be organized in September 2024 during a Symposium hosted at the Florida State University in partnership with Winthrop-King Institute for Contemporary French and Francophone Studies.  The film is about the proliferation of the Sargassum seaweed in the Caribbean region. About thirty artists, researchers and entrepreneurs of the Caribbean express themselves through interviews, researches, visuals and artworks to reflect on the challenges and opportunities of the Sargassum. Personified as living creatures with a collective memory and history originating from Africa, the algae are presented as muse or even motherly figures by some participants. From scientific studies to social observations and artistic interpretation, each interviewee offers, through their own images and words, a different approach on the problematic, and invites the audience to question its established views on what environmental issues mean. Rather than focusing on the human causes and deadly consequences of such scourge (Episode 1), the film adopts a poetic and creative approach (Episode 2) on how to embrace and transcend what mankind provoked (Episode 3).



CONFERENCE

In February 2020, Vanessa Selk, TMAF executive and artist director, participated in the international conference "From Katrina to Michael: Disaster in the 21st-century Circum-Caribbean" organized by Winthrop-King Institute for Contemporary French and Francophone Studies at the Florida State University, Tallahassee.

ARTIST RESIDENCY & RESTITUTION

From April to June 2021, an artists residency took place in Le François, Martinique at the HOLDEX site, a biotechnology company that focuses on developing technological solutions to recycle and transform the sargassum-algae, inviting Martinican and Jamaican artists to work on Sargassum.

Utilizing the sargassum-algae as a point of reference, the artists regularly met and interviewed with scientists and technical experts at HOLDEX and SARA for over two weeks, in order to imagine a constructive and new future: a world bridging Arts, Science and Entrepreneurship. The raw material "sargassum" has been the artistic driving force behind the residents' thoughts and works. Martinican and Jamaican artists created photographs, in-situ installations, performances, paintings, sculptures, and video-works which reflected their way of linking Art and Science. The productions will also contribute to the HOMO SARGASSUM film and travelling exhibition.

A temporary restitution of final or ongoing work, curated by Matilde dos Santos, was presented to the public at the HOLDEX company site at the end of the residency season, i.e. the end of June 2021.

Artists (alphabetical order):

• From Martinique: Nicolas Derné, Gwladys Gambie, Annabel Guérédrat, Ricardo Ozier-Lafontaine, Henri Tauliaut.
• From Jamaica (remotely due to the pandemic): Camille Chedda, Sheldon Green, Jordan Harisson, Oneika Russel.

COMIC-BOOK

TMAF participated in SARGASSUM, Story(ies) of a brown tide, an educational comic-book on sargassum, written by Jessica Oublié and published by the Alliance française in 2022

Combining art and stories, this comic book educates and informs on sargassum. In this book, these seaweeds are not only perceived to be sanitary and environmental threats, they are presented as sources of various opportunities. The comic-book displays nine stories, each of them composed by a team of a scenarist, a scientist and a drawer from territories impacted by sargassum (Brazil - Venezuela, - Saint Kitts and Nevis & Saint Lucia - Martinique - Guadeloupe - Antigua, Barbados & Saint Lucia - Dominican Republic - Haiti - Mexico). For its educational purpose, the comic-book has been translated into English, French, Spanish and creole.

TRAVELLING EXHIBITION

HOMO SARGASSUM is a travelling exhibition curated by Louisa Marajo and Vanessa Selk, featuring the work of over 30 artivists around the theme of Sargassum.

The Museum of Fine Arts (MoFA), Florida State University (Tallahassee) will host the first edition of the exhibition from September 2024 to March 2025. An exhibit catalog will be publish on that occasion. More info to come.

SYMPOSIUM, DISCUSSION PANELS & WORKSHOPS

In parallel with the exhibitions, the foundation will organize international international symposia, discussion panels and workshops with the aim of educating, connecting the whole-world and building lasting bridges between Art & Science. Artists, art professionals, researchers, entrepreneurs and the general public will have the opportunity to exchange ideas and create new relationships.

Join us in September for the HOMO SARGASSUM film premiere screening at the Florida State University, Tallahassee during the first HOMO SARGASSUM international symposium hosted by the Winthrop-King Institute for Contemporary French and Francophone Studies. Discussion panels and workshops will be organized once a month at FSU for the duration of the exhibit. More details to come.

HOMO SARGASSUM Community

ARTISTS

Confirmed artists (alphabetical order) participating in the HOMO SARGASSUM exhibition and / or HOMO SARGASSUM experimental art documentary film.

José Bertogal (Guadeloupe), Minia Biabiany (Guadeloupe), Beatriz Chachamovits (Brazil / USA), Camille Chedda (Jamaica), Xavier Cortada (USA), Ronald Cyrille (Guadeloupe), Nicolas Derné (Martinique), Morel Doucet (Haiti / USA), Alejandro Durán (Mexico /USA), Edouard Duval-Carrié (Haiti / USA), Billy Gérard Frank (Grenada / USA), Guy Gabon (Guadeloupe), Gwladys Gambie (Martinique), Sheldon Green (Jamaica), Annabel Guérédrat (New Caledonia / Martinique), Jordan Harrison (Jamaica), Jean-Baptiste Herné (USA), Nadia Huggins (Trinidad & Tobago / St Vincent and the Grenadines), Dominique Hunter (Guyana), Deborah Jack (St. Maartens / USA), Mirtho Linguet (French Guiana), Louisa Marajo (Martinique / France), Joiri Minaya (USA / Dominican Republic), Ricardo Ozier-Lafontaine (Martinique), Marielle Plaisir (France / Guadeloupe / USA), María Isabel Rueda (Colombia), Oneika Russel (Jamaica), Henri Tauliaut (Guadeloupe / Martinique), Philippe Thomarel (Guadeloupe / France), Caecilia Tripp (Germany / France / USA).

SCIENTISTS & RESEARCHERS

Confirmed scientists & researchers (alphabetical order). More TBC.

Alexis Alleyne-Caputo (artist & independent researcher), Pascal Lopez (Observatoire Hommes-Milieux Littoral Caraïbe), Moses Maerz (University of Potsdam), Florence Ménez (University of the French West Indies), Martin Munro (Florida State University), Marc Alexandre Tareau (University of French Guiana), Nicolas Wienders (Florida State University).

PARTNERS & SPONSORS

Winthrop-King Institute (FSU), Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science (FSU), Cortada Projects, Rubis Mécénat Cultural Fund and its InPulse Project, DAC Guadeloupe, Sara and Holdex.