HERE
Chloé Afiavi Quenum
As part of her residency, Chloé Quenum continues a line of inquiry she began at the Venice Biennale in 2024, in resonance with the restitution of the Treasures of Dahomey from France to Benin.
At that time, she focused particularly on the musical instruments of the Kingdom of Dahomey, preserved in the reserves of the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac.
In Venice, the artist suspended a silent orchestra of glass instruments.
In Ouidah, she extends this research by giving form to these same instruments in clay, drawing inspiration from the traditional pottery techniques of Sè.
Installed in the Jardin d’Essai, these works will become pieces of furniture and will form a permanent exhibition, inviting visitors to incorporate them into their everyday lives.
This project is part of “Inspiration Bénin – Au Cœur des Mondes Africains,” a residency program of the French Embassy in Benin, in partnership with MansA – Maison des Mondes Africains and ADAC, and implemented by the Institut Français du Bénin.
Ouidah.
Benin.
A garden.
For twenty-one years.
For four thousand years.
Forever.
A garden where stories of botany, heritage, archaeology, art, and memory are softly whispered…
Named Jardin d’Essai, it exists for the public.
Here, one discovers plants from here and elsewhere, from today as well as from yesterday.
Here, one experiments.
Here, one watches over.
Here, fragments of History are preserved.
Here, one finds inspiration.
Here, one rests.
Here, the future is imagined.
Here, things are shared.
Artists leave their gaze here.
They install fragments of their reflections, their visions, their narratives, their sensibilities.
The materials they cherish become works of art.
Always in respect for nature and memory.
This garden is animated by the weight of the past
and continues to be enriched by the questions of the present.
Today.
An artist.
Chloé Afiavi Quenum.
In residence in the Garden.
The material she chooses to explore is earth.
A choice that resonates with the territory.
A choice guided by her attachment to traditional knowledge and craftsmanship.
A choice that connects us all, across the world.
So the entire team accompanies her in this process.
A kiln is built on site, adapted to the scale of the objects she imagines: furniture, seats intended for the public.
A ceramic artisan from Sè is invited.
Sharing.
Shaping.
Slip.
Firing.
Sensations.
Materiality.
Experimentation.
First times.
ICI.
A title.
A project that begins during the Venice Biennale in 2024 with the work entitled L’heure bleue.
In resonance with the restitution of the Treasures of Dahomey from France to Benin, Chloé Afiavi Quenum asks herself about the other objects that remain in the reserves of the Musée du Quai Branly.
She focuses particularly on musical instruments.
Objects of everyday life, yet far from trivial.
She selects them in order to draw a geography.
North.
South.
East.
West.
Dahomey.
Varied musics.
Music as Treasure. Too.
Music.
Connection with the Other.
Circulations.
Exchanges.
Heritage.
Wealth.
These instruments have simple forms: wood, skins, metal.
Yet sophisticated.
And yet silent. There.
A silence that is too present.
In Venice, the artist forms a suspended orchestra, deprived of voice.
An orchestra of glass.
A precious material, a traded material.
Once exchanged for human beings.
Trade.
Dignity.
An opaque material.
Reappropriated.
She installs this orchestra between two glass windows.
Blurred panes.
Colonial glass.
A presence at once physical and ghostlike.
Heavy and light.
Reflections.
Today.
A change of scale, of technique.
The presence of the place.
Ouidah.
Return.
Life.
The artist invites children from nearby schools to discover these instruments, to understand their absence. And their return.
Together, they recreate today’s decorations, inspired by those of yesterday.
She also invites musicians.
To tell the story of the absent instruments.
To make sounds heard.
The Voices.
She speaks of earth.
Of gestures.
Of craftsmanship.
Of History.
Of people.
She restores.
And brings life back.
New stories.
ICI.
Sophie Douay
"Ici refers, for me, to the idea of returning objects to their territory. They were in Benin, then kept at the Musée du Quai Branly, later presented in Venice in another form, and now they return to Benin in yet another completely different form, made with local clay and decorated by a new generation of children. There is this idea of reintegrating a place that is originally theirs."
Chloé Afiavi Quenum
