Martinique

"In the process of conquest and colonisation, in the wake of the last discoverers, capitalism has spread throughout the whole world. But in the same movement, an unforeseen phenomenon has come to light. Travelling poets have written, painted, then taken photographs. An artistic vision of the world then emerged from beguiling connections, encounters, perceptions, desires and fantasies. Today, neoliberal economic mondialisation (globalisation) has given rise to what Édouard Glissant called mondialité (worldliness).

(…) Glissant was quick to make a distinction between mondialisation and mondialité. Mondialité is when everybody’s sensibilities, brusquely thrust onto the world’s big stage, begin to pick up on fraternities, locations, languages, sensations, perceptions. Artists had foreknowledge of this unexpected presence in the world, this worldliness that is also at the root of the current migratory phenomenon, a genuine world-situation."

Patrick Chamoiseau

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