How to reconcile the extreme speed at which
the islands are changing, how to put in relation with the extreme past? The digital and the analogue, the tactile and textured
materiality with the disembodied vinyl pop art?
At the core are two myths intertwined: that of a speaking tree that gives
fruits that are alive and which speak to humans, and that of a lost continent where giants sculpted the mountains: Lemuria.
Here the two myths enable the re-imagination of the fruits of the speaking tree as big-nosed rock-like creatures. The tree
(the Vacoas or Pandanus) itself has many uses, and its fibre was used for paper making, producing here maps of an ocean which
is fast changing: soon some islands will disappear (the Maldives), while others like Mauritius may lose their coastlines and
their beautiful hotels ...
A snapshot then, of changing times down there, in the Global South, in that link between Asia
and Africa.
About the ArtistHans Ramduth, born 1970, Mauritius, grew up and studied Art
History in Shantiniketan, an alter-modernist art university, near Kolkata in lndia. A multi-disciplinary creative and academic,
he has worked variously as cartoonist, puppeteer, documentary film maker and voice actor both for local and international
audiences. He has authored one book in 2007 on the post-independence visual arts of Mauritius, and then embarked on a PhD,
on the dynamics of identity construction in the field of visual culture of Mauritius (completed in 2015).
He has been
a curator, member of selection panels and as a member of the UNESCO African team for the 2005 Convention, advised Mauritian
government on the creative policies of the island. His visual work ranges from video and animation, to installation and paper-making
and drawing. He is interested in Global South cultural responses to the multi-dimensional crisis of the Anthropocene.
hans
Ramduth is currently teaching at the art department of Mahatma Gandhi Institute and he is the current Artist in Residence
at the Museumsquartier Vienna Residency Program.
www.mqw.aVen/institutions/q21
/artists-in-residence/hans-ramduthDuration: 16 November 2023 - 15 January 2024
Opening Hours: daily from
10:00 - 20:00
curated by Luzius Bernhard
dieangewandte.at -
digitalekunst.click
