Exhibition - “Fire of Origins” - Biso Biennial, Ouagadougou

Including: Mélinda Fourn

Until November 4th 2023

Mélinda Fourn Participates at the Biso Biennale and was awarded the Residency Prize.

First Biennale devoted to contemporary sculpture on the African continent, the International Biennale of Sculpture of Ouagadougou (BISO), is an important event for Africa and its diaspora, with two main projects :  the artists residencies and the Biso exhibition.

“The Fire of Origins” the second novel by congolese author Emmanuel Dongala. The Book was awarded with theGrand Prix littéraire d’Afriqur Noire in 1987. This matrix and animist fire evokes the passionate relationship that everyone can have with their intimate geographies and echoes the ruptive and devouring character of origins in an Afro-diasporic context. It is thus found in the work oh the Guadeloupean poet and novelist Daniel Maximin who develops a volcanism, an ode to the molten magma of creolized individuals in Soufrières (1987), L’isolé soleil (1989), L’invention des désirades (2000) and with the Afro-American James Baldwin, at the core of the United States identities in The Fire Next Time (1963).

Sculpture is we believe an original, unifying and regenerating fire of art in Africa. The choice of this theme for this 2023 edition of the International Biennial of Sculpture of Ouagadougou (BISO) is also a tribute to the Burkinabe metallurgical tradition, to the fire of he oven and the forge.

Mélinda Fourn presents “Qui dites-vous que je suis?”

Inquiring into the porous link between artisanal work andd art, her pieces combiene traditional techniques such as weaving, ceramics, jewellery and blacksmithing with new technologies. Throughout her residencies across West Africa, she questions the sustainability of materials, the transmission of traditions in the region, their use in society and the formal and functional evolution of everyday tools.