Public Project
Evictions
prone to destructive flooding, I use an abstract approach to document this
man-made catastrophe.
Due to the increased rainfall in recent years, the Nyabugogo river, that runs
close to the now defunct settlement depicted in the images, has often been
prone to serious and deadly flooding.
The Government consequently decided to raze all the houses of this poor
neighborhood. Some of the inhabitants were relocated. However, most of the
them had to find their own alternative accommodation at their own expense
relying on very limited means.
Each image testifies to the loss: the destruction of a home, of someone's
work. We find demolished buildings and rubble that seem abstract
compositions. The vivid colors make a strong counterpoint to the tragic
scenes around them: color becomes the soul of memory.
Abstraction that reminds us that “abstract art is not the creation of another
reality but the true vision of reality” (Piet Mondrian) making, rather
counterintuitively, the destructions even more real.
While a political and social meaning permeates this body of work, what is my
concern is the emotional connotations that these images convey. Emotional
connotations that, I believe, make the viewer closer to the evicted persons,
rendering these images more actual.
Amid the desolation and ruin, it was striking to find strong references to the
work of the painter Joseph Albers and especially to his “Homage to the
Square” series. And Albers’ study of how colors exist in terms of their
relationships with others is even more relevant in this context, where, as a
mere foreign observer of events, I felt a strong compassionate relationship
while speaking with those evicted.
This project aims to transcend the particular and the specific documenting this
man-made catastrophe in its instant beauty and disruptive drama. This is
about loss decontextualized of its geographical location.
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