Les Naufragés de la Méditerranée

Les Naufragés de la Méditerranée by Tiécoura N’Daou (Mali, 2015, 4 min.)

Filmed in Markala, Mali, this video with colorized and digitized images aims to make young people aware of the mirage that is Europe that attracts them. The imprecise silhouettes evoke the state of these clandestines attracted by this Eldorado; their hesitation is evoked by the slow movement of images; they greet each other, plunge with the energy of despair; we hear the sound of the water, the cries, sometimes encouragement, sometimes despair. The red on their bodies evokes the danger to which they expose themselves and the blood of the disappeared. A massive wall supported by sturdy stakes is a metaphor for Europe.

Tiécoura N’Daou is a young artist graduated from the Conservatory of Multimedia Arts and Crafts Balla Fasséké Kouyaté of Bamako (Mali). His talent is deployed in a plural practice centered around multimedia and video. The video “Miroir”, presented at the Biennale of Contemporary Arts videobrazil in Sao Polo, gives a perfect idea of ​​its approach where intervene his favorite themes such as presence, transparency, the passage… He explores time, staging his absence, or rather his suspension. He develops a work close to painting, but by resorting to the technological device of video. His work is characterized by a great sense of narrative and its progression, a prolific imagination, a deep empathy with his subjects, a very personal aesthetic, a real precision in the framing, a certain capacity to restore complex atmospheres, of nostalgia or worry, time passing. He produces a very strong poetic and original work.

Text by Joëlle Busca