Parfois revenir en arrière et avancer se confondent @ FRAC Alsace: Binta Diaw

 The exhibition Parfois revenir en arrière et avancer se confondent

That is what the mangrove whispers when one enters it for the first time. One thinks they are retracing their steps, yet the roots lead elsewhere, compelling us to look at what we had avoided. The mangrove knows no stability; it moves through slippages and detours.

This interwoven space, between water and land, was once a refuge for those attempting to escape slavery and colonial power. Authority could not enter without danger. The ground gave way, paths vanished, order dissolved. Even today, the mangrove protects in its own way, reminding us that there are zones where dominant narratives fail to impose themselves.

The power relations inherited from the era of colonial imperialism continue to structure the present. This is what is called coloniality. It persists in ways of governing, in deciding for others. It is embodied in asymmetrical trade relations and extractive industries, in land theft, in the exploitation of resources in the same regions as before. It manifests in closed borders, erected hierarchies, and forms of knowledge that prevail over those left aside. It reappears in the images that circulate and in the voices that are prevented from speaking. Moreover, colonization does not belong solely to the past: it continues today. Certain states maintain and expand their control over territories through force, occupation, or the settlement of populations.

It is within this dense terrain that the artists search and investigate. They gather fragments, delve into archives, and listen closely to whispered legends. They draw near to the voices that imperialism seeks to silence. These voices continue to rumble through landscapes, languages, gestures, and sometimes within silences themselves. From a fragment of a photograph, a trace, or a memory, the artists awaken these presences rendered mute and reconstruct the plurality of history. They reveal its seams, fractures, and absences.

The exhibition becomes a mangrove: a space of resistance, of intertwined narratives, of shifting memories. One makes their way through it by accepting instability, by moving backward and forward at once. We all become investigators, collecting clues scattered by counter-narratives and sharing our own forms of knowledge. Thus, it is not to be approached as a linear route, but as a crossing. Our bodies are constantly called upon: to pass through, to circumvent, to stop, to turn back, to accept becoming lost.

The works gathered here do not align in a single line; they respond to one another through echoes and resonances. Vegetation, roots, doors, textiles, voices, fragmented images compose an uncertain cartography made of thresholds and passages. As our bodies move through the space, they shift from abundance to fluidity, traversing narratives marked at times by historical violence and at others by gestures of care, repair, and reclamation. The exhibition sometimes asks us to slow down, to adjust our gaze, to listen more attentively to our own sensations. It requires active attention, as well as an acceptance of the discomfort and unease certain subjects may provoke.

The exhibition does not seek to produce a closed discourse, but to open a space where relations can form, where temporary, fragile, and necessary communities may emerge. Our voices, our writings, our knowledges nourish one another. As in the mangrove, trajectories intersect and hierarchies collapse.

Sometimes Going Back and Moving Forward Become One. Upon leaving the exhibition, a part of it remains within us; persistent images, resonant voices, and unresolved questions accompany us. The mangrove continues to expand within us, reminding us that other ways of inhabiting the world exist in the interstices, in detours, and in the relations we weave together.