Cabinet of curiosities

Cabinet Of Curiosities 2015

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SUppORTED BY JTI

© All rights reserved. For any further infomation : cabinetofcuriositiestz@gmail.com © Céline Pellus, Graphic Designer. Mélanie Grégoire, Illustrator

A group of artists reinterpret a ‘Cabinets of Curiosities’ also known as ‘Cabinets of Wonders’ and express their creativity and talent through putting on an art exhibition. ‘We want this exhibition to be a microcosm of the best and worst things, a memory theatre of wonders and monstrosities’.

Cabinets of curiosities first appeared in Italy during the Renaissance of the 16th century. Explorers and researchers brought back treasures from their travels and unknown territories to be shown in a small room as symbol of their wellbeing and their education. There were encyclopaedic collections of objects belonging to natural history, geology, ethnography, archaeology, biology or medicine.

The artists recreate objects belonging to fauna, flora, ethnography, mythical and magical creatures all depicted in installations or performances using a diverse mix of medias, such as, sculpture, painting, engraving, printing, drawing, photography, video and dance. The exhibition combines collective and individual creation.

This exhibition has the aim to promote the contemporary artists (Tanzanian or residents) and to give them an opportunity to demonstrate the power of a collective and multicultural creation, sharing knowledge, techniques and artistic competences.

Delphine Buysse & Charlotte Schattenmann, curators.

Cabinet Of Curiosities 2015

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For this exhibition, my curiosity concerned with the process.

Indeed, I decide to work on several small series or micro-series with themes related to the first hours of the Cabinet and his first triggers: fauna, flora and mineral. I wanted to be able to feel by the reproduction, the pleasure of the collection as a renewal act. Another reading of the world, a reinterpretation through the subjectivity of my concerns: the matter’s memory, the classification of natural species, the beliefs related to the species and their power.

Through my own exploration of the subject, I then came to the surrealist artist´s theories and techniques whose aim was to reproduce the dream machinery so as to divert objects. I fancy the idea that most ordinary tools can turn into highly peculiar after having been diverted from their meanings and shapes.

Any subject can loom behind any of them. Then appears as precisely relevant to use creation and experimentation as transitional phenomena to lower fears and finally dare adressing what frightens us: ambiantal destruction, mastering the permanent growth of technological and scientific progress, fading of traditions, beliefs, fear, death and life.

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Born in Belgium in 1982, Delphine Buysse is from an artists’ family. As she was frightened off to throw herself into her real calling she first studied communication of museum. But the leopard can’t change its spots and she quickly felt an emergency to express herself. She has always been drawing and painting and she discovered printmaking as a teenager at the Fine Arts School. Her art basically includes installations, mix media, engraving (wood, plaster, glass, plexiglas) and printmaking (screen printing, woodcut, linoleum, fineline, drypoint, etching, aquatint, collography, monotype,…).

Time is a very recurrent theme in her work : ‘I always feel like I am late to leave traces before I’ll die: this is an incurable obsession’. She likes to explore the psychological and philosophical side of a subjet and use the repetition as a link between the material she experiment. ‘Her work looks fragile (her refined line prints, her engraved glass works) but are strong in subject matter. The fragility of the work is the part that makes it strong.’ Jan Van Esch.

• I ndividual exhibitions : Sweet provocation & Empty spaces, Dar es Salaam, 2015 (coming soon).

• Collective exhibitions : Multiple choices, Dar es Salaam, February 2015, Cabinet of Curiosities, Dar es Salaam, January 2015, Private exhibition, Dar es Salaam, May 2014, L’Enfer-Me-Ment/Confinement, French Alliance of Dar-es-Salaam, October 2013.

•C urating : Cabinet of Curiosities, Dar es Salaam, January 2015, L’Enfer-Me-Ment/Confinement, French Alliance of Dar-es-Salaam, October 2013.

1. «Broken heart», screen printing and embroidery, 35x45 cm 2. «Sras» (Fear’s serie), monotype, 28x35,5 cm 3. «Fertility’s fetish», installation, 40x40 cm 4. «Gardinerosis planulata», woodcut, 25x34 cm Cabinet Of Curiosities 2015

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Metamorphosis and Mirabilia Two series on the human kingdom and plant world.

The Metamorphosis and Mirabilia series are metaphors for the relationship between human beings and nature. Mirabilia highlights the combined beauty and coexistence of these two worlds and natural wonders, while Metamorphosis evokes the constant struggle that exists between them. Man attempts to dominate nature, which is vitally essential to him, while the strength and fertility of the plant world take over again the moment he lets go.

The world of the individual and the plant intertwine to give birth to a hybrid creature. Man merges with the roots of a tree, a strange backbone appears, wings begin to sprout from him... These fantastical creatures, half man half plant, are the result of my fantasmagorical and dreamlike thoughts. Seeing the protruding roots, it was like I was looking at an organic creation straight out of Dali’s imagination. It was then, under the influence of the Surrealist movement, that the project to present a collection of plant exotica turned into a series in which the human game echoed the divine creation. Meeting Andre Breton’s criteria, according to which « the surrealist conception of an object gives way to creation of the Surrealist object. » Cabinet Of Curiosities 2015

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A French self-taught photographer, who started to study the art of photography by assisting photographers at Elle Studios. After learning syndication, production, journalism at French Elle magazine, she specializes in photo production and worked for magazine like Le Vrai Papier Journal, Le Monde2, Max, and Nova in Paris. Later she moved to Berlin and started focusing on her own photography. Her personal work is a mix of documentary and encounters. She currently lives and works in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, as freelance photographer and independent curator for artistic projects and events.

EXHIBITIONS • Bridging the lines, UNHCR World Refugee Day, Nafasi Art Space, Dar es Salaam, 2013 • Confinement: 4 Artists enclosed for 48h, Alliance Française, Dar es Salaam, 2013 • Now and Then: Health facilities development through the time, Jubilee Hall, Dar es Salaam, 2014 schattencha.wix.com/pictures

« Mutante » Fine Art Print 30x45cm Cabinet Of Curiosities 2015

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Some people don’t care about others and they think that they are more wise and the last generation.

Most affluent people have political ambitions and believe that politics is a powerful tool to rule and destroy.

All this is because of individualism and grid. They have forgotten that they must serve the society.

That’s why there is increase of corruption and high rate of poacher of our wild animals. Criminal activities and endless war in the world, that destroys our environment. These are the reasons why I’m amused (curious).

I have decided to make vulture and hyena eating caucuses’ to depicts some grid politicians who kill others for political reasons, miss use of government fund and abuse power all over the world especial Tanzania.

This is not eating time it is time for serving the people. Our Leader should draw a thick line between politics and business.

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Born in Mwanza, Malulu is a Tanzanian painter, sculptor, print maker, musician, and dancer based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He received his training from the Bagamoyo College of Arts (TASUBA) and has his studio (and a membership) at Nafasi Art Space, Dar es Salaam.

He is also a member of the Norsesund Konstvandring in Sweden.

Malulu works mostly with recycled material to create sculptural instillations that interrogate challenges and difficulties that face the lower class majority of Tanzanians who are often rendered voiceless. His works have been exhibited and sold through several galleries in Dar es salaam and South Africa.

EXHIBITIONS • Solo shows : Majangili-Poachers, Goethe Institute Tanzania (2014), Poachers, Kuona Trust, Nairobi (2014), Chasing the Tail, Goethe Institute, Tanzania (2013), Chasing he Tail, 32 degrees East, Uganda (2013).

• Group shows : Dickens & Malulu at Emerson Hotel, Zanzibar (2014), Vernissage, Sternahall Gallery, Sweden (2014), East African Encounters, Circle Art Agency (2014), East Africa Art Biennale, Dar es Salaam (2013).

1. « Chasing the tail », 2013 Installation of mix media (steel wire, metal and recycled plastic bag) 2. « Election time », work in progress Installation of mix media (steel wire, metal and recycled plastic bag) Cabinet Of Curiosities 2015

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We humans are built with much curiosity that propel us to seek answers to everything around us in order to broaden our knowledge.

We have even dared to inquire into the most unanswerable questions about creation, for instance; between the chicken and the egg, which was created first? Or between a woman and a man who birthed the other first? These are questions that one would wonder and completely fail to find appropriate answer to, unless perhaps one flees to religion which in its own (arguably) fictitious way has attempted to extinguish this curiosity by providing simple answers informed by patriarchy.

As an artist I often wallow in this curiosity. As humans, where exactly can we position our being, is it in our bodies, the apple of our eyes, the heart or in the mind and in our ideas? I am intrigued by Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution (1859) which claims that humans began as apes, and in time we evolved to become who we are now. This is where this artwork takes from. If the chimpanzee will one day evolve into a human, we then perhaps need to clothe them so they don’t evolve into humans while naked!

Cabinet Of Curiosities 2015

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Born in Njombe, Tanzania, in 1974, Cloud is a visual artists specialized in illustration and drawings. He received his training from Kinondoni Young Artist (KYA). His illustrations have been widespread used in Tanzania in schoolbooks, Magazines, Social Campaign and Comics. Chatanda has received several awards for his work; among others he won the Best AC cartoon award 2013. Chatanda currently works on larger scale hand drawings that deal with daily and city life in Tanzania; he has exhibited his works at Nafasi Art Space and the East African Biennale.

ARTIST STATEMENT Recently I came to realize that the art I am doing is actually an invisible religion which exist within me. This weird feeling of mine hunts me and my mind, and makes me have day dreams and creates an imaginary world. I have lived with this for many years and that lead me creating and working out different ideas.

I found out that people remember some of the characters I created as if they exist. Being an artist like that I found out that my art speaks louder than word, this helps me to socialize and have lots of friend.

I feel lucky to have this special ability of using my talent to express my feelings in beauty, passion so to touch people, make it attractive and also to create views that add an extra window to our lives.

« Kichuguu » Mixed media 64x74 cm Cabinet Of Curiosities 2015

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The animal kingdom, from the smallest organism to the big five passing by the insects, is living a good life.

The animals know how the system works and its organization. They accept the circle of life’s rules. The problem is coming from human being : people have forgotten cooperation and charity. As an artist, for me, the curiosity is that we can perpetually be inspired by the nature.

I have the dream that we could learn again how to stay together and how to help each other in peace.

In the oral tradition of the Swahili coast, the story telling implicitly explain that bad situation always come from bad feelings. People are sometimes mistaken about the real purpose of life. They want to possess, they want to be powerfull, they want to revenge. Through tales, we can teach to our children what is the real meaning of our stay on earth.

We should never forget how much we can learn from the ancient, not only in the villages and how powerfull the tradional teaching can be.

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Francis Patrick Imanjama, was born in Zanzibar, in 1959. His interest in art took him very early to attend a course in painting at The Goethe Institute. Later, he joined the artist cooperative “Nyumba y Sanaa” (House of culture). In 1982, he got his first training in Etching in which he will further speciliased to become himself a highly regarded specialist in etching. He gave a number of training workshop in Tanzania (woodcut, collography, pastel) in Dogodogo street children Art Program, at the TCC Vipaji Foundation and in Austria.

He had number of exhibitions in Kenya, Austria, Germany, Italy,…

His most recent activities are : Opening Exhibition of the Vipaje Gallery, Dar es Salaam, May 2014. “L’Enfer-Me-ment/Confinement”, collective performance-exhibition “L’Enfer-Me-ment/Confinement”, French Alliance of Dar es Salam, October 2013. “Inspired Vipaji” exhibition, French Alliance of Dar es Salam, in May 2013 and participation to the catalogue’s creation “Three decades of Tanzanian Art”.

1st Prize “150th anniversary of the Italian unification” art competition, 2008. Illustration of a children book “Safina”, Vienna, 1999 His work is focused on the animal kingdom, the children and the mothers as symbol of peace. Recently he started to search topics which touch deeply his real-life experiences and of course it includes hard time of it.

1. « The zebrhino », water color on paper, 32x43 cm 2. « Kipeguru », ink on paper, 34x46,5 cm 3. « The daughter’s with the goat’s head », water color on paper, 32x43 cm 4. « Kungupepeo », ink on paper, 34x46,5 cm Cabinet Of Curiosities 2015

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A Glass House in the Tropics is an installation for the exhibition ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’ by Jan van Esch.

It’s a collection of found objects covered in Ice that will be installed just before the opening and slowly melt away during the opening event.

It is a reaction to the influx of foreign goods and ideas in Tanzania, motivated by confusion the artists gets when he follows of the rising of many storage high glass building on 5 degrees from the equator.

Modernity is what the architects and builders call it, does that means that modernity means stupidity.

A glass building in the full sun, isn’t that a greenhouse, to grow tomatoes in cold climates.

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The selection has started and will continue till the opening with foreign items as fake Christmas trees with fake snow, white Barbie dolls, crows, KFC chicken, etc.. All the items will be frozen in boxes and placed in a cabinet.

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Jan van Esch is a visual artists and managing director of Nafasi Art Space. He combines managing and organizing exhibitions and cultural events with his own art production. He has shown his works in several solo and group exhibitions in Tanzania and Kenya.

His works are directed by the specific medium he works with. For the last years he uses chalk on blackboard in 2 dimensional works and animations, as well as with recycled wood in collages working towards 3-dimensions. He wipes his chalk over the board till the right form is found, while he hammers on with the pieces of wood till they become their own new story.

His last exhibition was a collaborative project called GraceFruit, a wordplay of its creators names Ephrem Solomon and Jan van Esch, whereby works were exchanged to discovering the ideas of the others artists initial ideas, and reform these into new works. As these works come out of more the 1 mind, they combine ideas and the works are asking the viewers to make their own story. Something he also is trying to do for this exhibition whereby he shows works in an interactive installation to have viewers to reflect on the items displayed and to form their opinion on the need and use of all these things in society.

1. « Tiara » Interactive ice’s installation 2. « X-mas tree » Interactive ice’s installation Cabinet Of Curiosities 2015

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He was born in 1986 in Kigoma, Tanzania.

Gadi Ramadhani is a self-taught Tanzanian visual artist who started painting from a very young age and later received an MAPP-SETA learnership to study printmaking at the Artist Proof Studio in Johannesburg, which is when he began pursuing art as a career.

Gadi’s work commonly deals with the subject of the human-form, conceptual and other, mostly political, inspirations gathered from the community that surrounds him. His prints and paintings have found their way to several institutions and exhibitions in Africa and abroad, and he has participated in several international art workshops and residencies.

Besides making prints, paintings, installations, and sculptures, Gadi was also the Manager of Nafasi ArtSpace in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania from 2009 to 2011 and he has participated as a trainer in special projects with Kuona Trust of Kenya, 32Degrees of Uganda, Nubuke Foundation of Ghana and Under The Same Sun of Tanzania. Gadi was also a co-juror of the Art Cross Border Competition held in 2012 and hosted by Emergent Art Space-California and he has since been working with the Irente Outreach Program, funded by the Finnish Foreign Ministry, as an art therapist and teacher for pre-adolescents with disabilities in Tanga region.

Gadi currently lives and works in Dar es Salaam and Lushoto where he has founded Koko’TEN, a Tanzanian mobile art center that believes in the transformative power of the arts in communities.

«Historical of the Offical death» Intallation

It had taken so special when flower presented to a woman/ man since the tradition of flowers begins. It started surprising me in 2011 when I attended Wasanii Int. Workshop in Naivasha, Kenya. More than 50% of the flowers which are sold in London markets come from this place.

I became curious of the flowers’ growing process itself and the chemicals that are used which are flowing back to the Lake Naivasha.

This scenario, from the growing process to the surprised lady at the end, has brought me to this Collective installation ‘Historical of the Official Death’. It contains a semi-present officer and a woman dead body with flowers. If we grow flowers for women who are already poisoned by the poison that went into the water they drank. Who is responsible? Is a flower more important than the human being it will be given to? Would the flower exist without women?

When Delphine asked me to create two pieces for the project, I first thought I couldn’t make it! Those two atmospheres she wanted me to bring alive musically seemed odd to me. Then, I realised I always wanted to experiment. I always wanted to bring peoples’ ears into something different, more experimental, something that could push their imagination beyond. This was also the opportunity to use my music controller differently.

I mixed another material than the music I usually mix ( House music, Hip Hop, Funk, Afrobeat) and then tried all the controller’s sound effects without limits (echo, reverb, saturation, filter...).

This experimentation was actually very funny and interesting!

I started by listening all the sounds that surround me : people singing or screaming, birds, insects, water, waves, electronic machines....

Then I collected every pieces of sounds I could use for my creation: from a movie soundtrack to a radio broadcast passing by the sounds that surround me. I took those samples and mixed them with experimental music (free jazz, african percussions, european classical music, punk) and added effects. Today, I keep listening to them like any kind of music. I really enjoyed experimenting and it’s definitively the beginning of a new way of producing music.

J.B. (Pronounced Jibé in french) has been grinding all kind of sounds since he arrived in Dar in 2011. As a Vocal drummer (or Beatboxer), he has performed Live for several occasions with his band ( Afro Jahazzi Quartet) or alone with tanzanian poets for the Lyricist Lounge sessions.

As a Dj, he has shared his soulful feeling for many events like The Beat @Triniti, Throwdown Thursdays @ Black Tomato, Fête de la musique @Alliance Française, Beaujolais Nouveau and other VIP events @Golden Tulip or Seacliff Hotel.

A s a m u s i c p ro d u ce r, h e recently joined the contemporary art exhibition artist crew for “The cabinet of curiosities” at Nafasi. His two experimental music pieces will reflect the opposition betwen the Wonders and the Monstruosities and will be played permanently during the exhibition.

J.B. (D.J., musician)

Soundcreation : https://soundcloud.com/dwatmusic/cabinet-des-monstruosites Cabinet Of Curiosities 2015

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The Black Dino What is the link between a dinosaur and oil slick? At dinosaur’s era, an asteroid was the cause of the species’ extinction. Today the biggest danger for the animal kingdom is the human being and his incessant and growing activities which destroy nature and endanger the survival of life on earth.

Collective installation made by Delphine Buysse, Francis Imanjama, Gadi Ramadhani and Charlotte Schattenmann.

« The Black Dino » Wood and ink installations

Cocoon This piece of art is representing a cocoon with a lightened heart, half animal half human. A cocoon is a revival’s metaphor. As the artist sometimes needs to withdraw to be able to think, conceive and recreate himself, the chrysalis needs to take its time to come out of his shell and reborn. There is nothing as constant as change.

Collective installation made by Delphine Buysse, Francis Imanjama, Gadi Ramadhani and Charlotte Schattenmann.

« Cocoon » Wire, textile, natural fiber, soap sculpture and flexible LED installation

The curiosity as a requirement for the creation of an exhibition.

In 1771 in the Trévoux dictionnary, curiosity already includes three components, “Curiosus, cupidus, studiosus”: attention, desire, passion for knowledge. In Furetière’s dictionnary, a curious person is defined as “one who wishes to know everything, and learn everything, who has a desire to learn, to witness the marvels of art and nature, one who has travelled, who has browsed all the good books, who has picked up the rarest things”.

From the start this word referred to both the condition of the subject and the nature of the object but would remain linked to the artistic or scientific activities of the amateur for a long time. Indeed the history of curiosity follows that of objects in their relation to desire, from the least mentionnable (the more or less fetishist enjoyment of the collector) to the most honourable (amateur, researcher...). However curiosity rapidly ceased to be the sole preserve of the lovers of luxury and acquisitiveness, guided solely by aesthetic enjoyment or the thirst for the pleasure of possessing something unique. On the contrary it became more subtle, shifting towards a passion for objects that carry meaning and became tinged with a thirst for knowledge.

Today curiosity, which is innate in children, has a bad reputation and is seldom encouraged in teaching. Do we not say in French that it is “a big flaw”? More metaphorically English says that it “killed the cat”.

Nonetheless the curiosity quotient has started to feature alongside

the intellectual and emotional quotients. In an article of the Harvard Business Review entitled “Curiosity is as important as intelligence”, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic explains that those who have a developed curiosity quotient demonstrate two great qualities: “tolerance to ambiguity” and the will “to acquire knowledge”.

Being able to face uncertainty or something unexpected, to approach conflict in a creative fashion, to discover, assemble, innovate, to embark on experimentation in the the hope of finding new pathways, are all qualities that are inherent and necessary to creation but also to the success of a collective exhibition. The theme of the Cabinet of curiosities enables one to make use of curiosity by attempting to penetrate or surprise Nature’s intimate secrets and the world’s creative process in what is most fantastic about them.

No experimentation without freedom.

Freeing experimentation is a vast programme. To create without any restrictions whatsoever, be they aesthetic, financial or political: is that not every artist’s dream? A utopian dream without a doubt, the underlying idea behind the organisation of this exhibition.

According to the English psychiatrist Donald Winicott, the initiation of playing in small children appears in an intermediate space called the potential space. In this potential space, illusion would be a kind of error that generates possibility, the possibility of experimentation.

Experimentation is based on perpetually putting things into question so as to reach a new level of understanding.

Through this experimentation play is described as a manipulation undertaken by a child in interaction with him/herself or with external objects in order to diminish human anxiety. These objects that reduce anxiety are called transitional objects. Consequently playing

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becomes an act of creation in response to anxiety and creativity, a way of apprehending reality, becomes a driving force for human development that enables a continually new way of seeing things if tradition permits it.

In adults the potential space of play occurs through cultural experiences and notably through artistic creation.

According to Walter Benjamin, a German historian of art, the act of collecting is a process of renewal in the same way as painting, cutting, pasting for children. Renewing the world is without doubt the deepest instinct experienced by the collector when acquiring a new object.

Aside from its encyclopedic vocation that is perceptible in the concept of “little theatre of the world�, the collection aims to arouse imagination via a motionless voyage through space and time and bear witness by presenting traces of past and distant things.

The act of collecting these strange, sometimes man-made objects, reveals a playful aspect of the Cabinet of Curiosities. To miniaturise the world, be able to take everything in in one glimpse. The playing of humans mirrors the creative playing of the divine and bears witness to the will to give meaning by establishing links between the visible and the invisible, the known and the unknown.

To renew the world, provoke imagination, leave traces of the past, give meaning, gather together, play, create a link between the human and the divine, these are some of the objectives that underpin the act of collecting and are inherent conditions in initiating the creative process and a contemporary reinterpretation of the Cabinet of Curiosities as we have imagined it.

The Cabinet of Curiosities and the role of commissioner.

The surrealist artists implemented a theory of liberation of desire by using techniques that reproduced the mechanisms of dreams.

Through the act of creative transformation objects are turned, overturned, diverted from their meaning, their shape, so as to become unusual objects, “without reason”. Thus next to extraordinary objects which make us into unremarkable curious observers, there are those ordinary objects which make banality become curious.

In a Cabinet of Curiosities objects enter into dialogue with each other, waking, awakening the imaginary to the unconscious. Mid-way between chance and necessity, the object, divested of any practical usage, takes on the role of messenger.

In the same way as an artist who can only express his individual freedom within a group, the object only takes on meaning in relation to other objects. This dialectic of objects which is at the heart of the commissioner’s role, between order and disorder, rational and supernatural, didactics and freedom, is to maintain the primacy of desire.

This is why a Cabinet of Curiosities in the same way as an artist’s workshop bears witness to encounters, travels, walks, friendships, separations, debates, to an array of objective conditions that presided over its creation and subjective choices resulting from the desire of the artists and commissioners.

Delphine Buysse

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