We carried out this installation from September 9 to 16, 2012 on the Digue du Large. A week in front of the sea, drunk with the wind and the sun, doing this ridiculous and magnificent gesture together. The work withstood a force 9 mistral, but not a few human hands. We have seen of our work only what we give you to see here. Barely completed, the installation was destroyed by a passer-by from La Digue and not a single gold leaf was found around it! We will never know what displeased him so much, or perhaps this passer-by got caught up in the work, seeing in it valuable material ? The investigation was vigorously carried out within the Port and will remain unanswered: who stole the gold from Africa ? that was the question asked, they simply told me at the security service secretariat… The two days that followed, we again covered a few blocks with what was left of the adhesive, to finally see from the sea, during a boat trip, the bursts of light from Golden Africa…
Adrift project
The model project
January 2002-May 2003
Footprint in space 17 m2
Materials/techniques
15 items
Mixed techniques
The model project was born from a desire and a place.
The place is the Hermitage Park in Casablanca, the desire is to design a work on the scale of a disaster.
Steps.
The model project is structured by a laborious study of the scale of each object, from the largest to the smallest: the survey of the park (the only one available to the city), the inventory of everything that makes up the park (waste , trees, buildings), making the platform and making the tools to make the elements that make up the model to scale. The notion of scale seemed to me the most accurate, to measure the extent of this territory, a means, paradoxically, both simple and complex to apprehend a reality in its smallest details.
Gateway to the city.
From February 2002 to April 2003, in two places in Casablanca linked by the same story: the Villa des Arts - where I decided to set up the model project - and the Parc de l'Hermitage- object of this realization - date from the same year, 1927. Two constituents of the collective heritage of a city, which socially, symbolize in my opinion the full extent of the social and cultural divide on the scale of a society.
The park.
Concerning the park itself, my objective was to bet on art -form and discourse- as a possible tool for transforming human attitudes. In a global context, which at first sight did not lend itself to it, the model project allowed me to verify, on the scale of a city and a society, the accuracy of the art, of the artist and his gaze, and then, the possibilities of exchanges around common questions.
Prototype and declaration.
Project of the model, because the model could not have been made, and the stake which is the future of this park would have been aborted. The notion of inventory does not allow escape, behind or in front. Everything can take place here and now, or not. In this, the model of the park has become a prototype.
Opening.
A week after the opening of the model, 2000 trucks of garbage and rubble were evacuated from the park, the process of physical transformation of the park was juxtaposed with that of the manufacture of the model.
The model bears witness.
Hassan Darsi
