and the results of their practice, Jems Robert Koko Bi

Jems Robert Koko Bi

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The dialog between art and migration: The geographical mobility, mestizo identities of the creator and the results of their practice

I’m a migrant.

Every time I am in this type of meetings, I ask myself, What is my contribution?

In 2007, we were in Las Palmas at the Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno Museum to exhibit “Travesia”: Migration. We were guests in a 5-star hotel and eating very nice things. We were talking about migration, and at that moment in Las Palmas, thousands of people were dying in the sea.

So I asked myself, what kind of migration are we talking about now? Because, I’m African. My history is long and large, but I have to reduce it to a talk about myself: my history. What kind of migration is a nice migration?

I don’t know. I recall in my country, in my continent, there was another kind of migration: People came from somewhere else, maybe from Europe. They came to Africa. They took all that we had, but no one talked about migration back then. No one.

Afterwards some people complained, but those people were bombed, so they had to leave their own country, and then it was called a migration: “Oh, that’s a migration”, but what’s the name for those who were coming from Europe before? Is that a nice migration?

Now we are talking about migration. We have to fight against this kind of migration. No, we have to fight against the first one. We created this bad migration that we are now fighting against.

My history: I was born in a small village. My parents were Christian, but I didn’t wanted to go to Church. My brother and sister had to go to the Church. I said, “I won’t go to Church”. My father said, “No. If you don’t go to Church, you are a bad example for your siblings”, so he sent me away. I was eight years old. I went to the east.

My name was changed; I completed all my studies, and I came back to Abidjan, the capital. I went to Nigeria and learned Spanish history. I thought, what am I doing here? I know one history-- the history of my mask. So, I left the city of Nigeria and went to the Academy of Art. Afterwards, I saw that the system of education at the Academy wasn’t worth it. I was looking for my mask. But in the Academy I was only copying sculpture of Michelangelo, Da Vinci. I didn’t know them. I said, “No, master. I’m looking for my history”.

Fortunately, in 1992, a German sculptor came to visit us and gave a workshop in which we worked with wood. I stayed in Abidjan, the capital. In this land, many, many trees grows, but wood sculptures in that school were forbidden, so we had to work with clay. We didn’t knew how, but this guy came from Europe; he worked with wood. He told us, “You have to write your own history”. I thought, This is the first time someone tells me I have to write my own history”. It was good.

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Empty, 2016, 650 x 80 x 200 cm, Oakwood. © Jems Robert Koko Bi

Merina, 2017, 440 x 350 x 350 cm, burnt merina wood. © Jems Robert Koko Bi

Jems Robert Koko Bi

276 I stayed with wood until now, as a media to talk about my history. I don’t complain. No. I never complain. I see, and I talk to the people about what I see.

Last year we went to an exhibition about The Divine Comedy in Washington, DC. We were at a round table, and the topic was: Is It Possible that Art could Save the World? It had many points of view from many artists, and I thought about myself. I said, “I cannot save the world. It’s not possible. I cannot save the world. What I can do is change my life, change the way of my life, and maybe in this way I can save the world. Maybe.

I cannot change the world, but I look at the world, and I make my work to show the world what it is for me. So, after my studio in Ivory Coast at the academy, I left all histories that didn’t belong to me.

I followed the German teacher, and I went to the academy of art in Dusseldorf. In Dusseldorf, I could see my own country better. I’ve seen the Ivory Coast better, because I was in; I was in so I could see. I went very far, and this time I came to see the great migration. My migration is not the migration where people are dying. No. To make a migration some bone had to die. Someone has to die so that others may leave. So, through migrations, many people die. It’s the same in slavery.

Many, many people die, but they give you, give us, the chance to be alive. This is why I celebrate migration, because somebody has taught me that migration is not only the movement of the body, it’s also the movement of culture, so I adopt this positive perspective on migration to say, I live. I form part of this migration to know more. For me, it means change. For me, it is the movement of people. For me, it is exodus.

I want to talk about exodus, because I am an artist. I make forms. I don’t want to talk just about migration provoking war. I’ve been in migrations, so I have to show the best side of it. This is culture. This is a change. This is knowledge.

Passengers. © Jems Robert Koko Bi

Missing leg, 2017, 630 x 80 x 70 cm, Azobe wood. © Jems Robert Koko Bi

Diaspora II, Museum Kunsthalle Bonn Kopie. © Jems Robert Koko Bi

I went to Germany, and I was surprised that I’ve seen many, many black people in Europe. Wow! Is this slavery? Is this travelling? Or migration? What is this? And I thought I’d take the positive way. I thought, this is the diaspora. My people are the diaspora. So I created Diaspora. My hand is the wood.

I created Diaspora. In Africa it is so nice to be in a circle, many things are made in a circle, to look inside. So this is my Diaspora. This is the first I created, and after 2000 I was invited to the Biennale in Dakar, and I visited an island named Gorée. Gorée is an island, where slaves where collected and deposited. We saw great history, and I wanted to visit the slavery house and I found a group of Afro-Americans. I listened to the speech of the curator, and some started crying and some started singing gospel, and I was there, I said, “What’s going on now? What’s happening now? They are hearing the history of slavery and they start crying. Why? What’s happening now? Are they thinking about some kind of return?” And I said, Okay.

I returned back to Germany, and I created The Return of the Children of Gorée. I made hundreds of heads and I put them on boards in Hamburg to go back to Gorée, and I made this The Return of the Children of Gorée. When I was there and we crossed the sea up to Gorée, I gave one to each citizen of this island, I gave them one head to be adopted, The Return of the Children of Gorée. This is good. But thousands of Senegalese came to Gorée and told me, Jems, You don’t know what you have done, now. You created our own return.

Because Gorée is a tourist town, people go there in the morning and in the evening Gorée is empty again. They live in Dakar, the capital. Nobody came again there, but on that day thousands of people came to Gorée, so I didn’t know that I could create a return only with the wood. I created also the return of the Senegalese to their island, the return of the children.

And, you know, the world is going, it’s going, and many, many things happens. Children, during this movement, die and die. I said, what do I have to do? Why are children dying? They’re just born. They don’t know why. They’re just born and they have already died, so what can I do? I cre-

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Jems Robert Koko Bi

280 ated a sculpture for them, Carrefour. I created Carrefour. I saw in a movie one day, in an article, the desert: One guy sitting. I don’t know if it was a child because it had only a head. I don’t know his age. He was alone. Looking around like this. Alone in the desert. I said, Wow. Okay. I’ll create this child of wood. Burn it. And since you are alone, I’ll give you your parents. So I created the father, the mother. They come dead too, destroyed. They try to look into the sky, asking God, What’s happened? But they couldn’t see God because there was too much smoke caused by guns and tanks. They don’t see God.

I presented [Carrefour] in 2008, in Dakar Biennale, and something miserable happened. They gave me an award for it. They gave me a prize for that. I asked them, why are you giving me a prize for that? I didn’t make it just to get an award. I want to make my dream. To bring the people travel with their heart; to make it emotional; to make them feel, so I create to travel with their heart, but only with their heart.

I created Exodus. A foot is for me a symbol of movement.

How can I make the art bigger? Because it’s so small that I can’t see.

This is a place in Amsterdam, this was 2013. This was the meeting of the 60 great sculptors of the world.

And they gave me this place, I created three hundred feet. And I crossed Amsterdam with the feet on to place. This place is symbolic. It’s the reconciliation place between Holland and Indonesia. So they asked me to bring the people together there through my Feet. So, I made these three hundred feet to cross Amsterdam, and people followed. They went across Amsterdam.

I created the movement of the culture. For me, the mask symbolizes my culture. So I sent the mask away. To find another mask in order to change. I sent my people away to a change.

Exodus. © Jems Robert Koko Bi

Autopsie, 2007, 230 x 150 cm, crayon et collage sur soie. © Jems Robert Koko Bi

Racine, 2016, 600 x 400 x 400 cm, part burnt wood. © Jems Robert Koko Bi

My last sculpture in Dakar was at the Biennale. This is “Asile”, also Asile is the result of movement. This is “Autopsy”, and this is “Cercle de Vie”. The history about movement is so important. When you move you can know the history of others. So, you can be tolerant. When you really know somebody you are not afraid. So you have to go to him. This is the point of migration for me. But what we can do is to help. To help those children. All I can do is ask them one thing, what do you need? I can give out; I can show you how to make a sculpture. And this is why I spent ten years of my life working with the Udi Minuinne Foundation.

I work with children; it’s all I can do. And to the world I show my work, to tell them how I see the world.

This is “Racine”. And this is the last. My trip finishes here because I said, when we become the roots of our own tree, we can create a forest. Each one. Each one of us, we have to be the roots of our own tree. And I see here many, many trees. I see the forest. And forest is life. And we can do many, many things with a forest. We can do many, many things when we are ourselves. We never move again to die, but we can change because we are a forest. We create our own forest to be together.

This is my contribution. I cannot change the world. No. I can do only what you see. Maybe the world can see as a class to change itself. I celebrate migration because I’m the product of migration.

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