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MARQUESAS


2017-2018

Raïssa, 2018

Oil on paper (detail)

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MARQUESAS
2017-2018

Te fenua enata

"Ah! When Marquesan drums play and you do the bird dance, you feel like you’re all alone in the world…”

Raïssa from Ua Pou

Abstracts

"In 2017, I returned to the Marquesas forty years after my first stay there, with the aim of embarking on this work. As usual, I had both a very specific, and extremely vague notion of what I was going to do. I had the pleasure of being hosted by my friend Pascal, who I’d already met as a young man, in 2002, in Ua Pou. In the meantime, Pascal had put on a bit of bulk, but also taken on a weighty role in the archipelago’s community and activist life: among other activities, today he heads the indispensable cultural and environmental federation of the Marquesas, Motu Haka.

(…) It’s said that in the Oceanian language, there is neither past nor future: just a succession of present moments. The past is in fact well developed as a concept, but it seems to stand in front of us. So we face the past while the future is located behind us, behind our backs, intangible. Vivifying the memories of a people in the way that Motu Haka in particular manages to, is primordial: in front of the Marquesans of today emerge the bearings of a past, without which the meaning of existence to come would be lost.”

Extract from L'Errance et le Divers, 2018, Éditions Gallimard

Works

MARQUESAS 4083
Vanessa, 2018

Ua Pou, Marquesas Islands
Oil on paper
76 x 46 cm

MARQUESAS 4079
Tahia, 2018

Tahuata, Marquesas Islands
Oil on paper
76 x 46 cm

MARQUESAS 4085
Yvonne, 2018

Ua Pou, Marquesas Islands
Oil on paper
76 x 46 cm

MARQUESAS 4173
Raïssa, 2018

Ua Pou, Marquesas Islands
Oil on paper
76 x 46 cm

MARQUESAS 4073
Hereiti, 2017

Hiva Oa, Marquesas Islands
Oil on paper mounted on canvas
76 x 46 cm

MARQUESAS 4075
Ida, 2017

Hiva Oa, Marquesas Islands
Oil on paper
76 x 46 cm

MARQUESAS 4081
Teiki, 2017

Tahiti
Oil on paper
76 x 46 cm

MARQUESAS 4067
Ayla, 2017

Hiva Oa, Marquesas Islands
Oil on paper mounted on canvas
76 x 46 cm

MARQUESAS 4071
Hauani, 2017

Tahuata, Marquesas Islands
Oil on paper
76 x 46 cm

MARQUESAS 4069
Gilou, 2017

Hiva Oa, Marquesas Islands
Oil on paper mounted on canvas
76 x 46 cm

Maps

MARQUESAS 4066

Making-of

Illustration Making Of
Portrait of Ayla, 2017

Hiva Oa, Îles Marquises
© Gwen Le Bras

Illustration Making Of
Portrait of Vanessa, 2018

Ua Huka, Îles Marquises
© Gwen Le Bras

Film by Zoé Lamazou

Photo and sound: Gwen Le Bras

Books

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