Performance : Poetry Caravan @ Giardini della Biennale (Sestiere Castello): Werewere-Liking

As part of the programme of La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Koyo Kouoh, artist Werewere-Liking will take part in the Poetry Caravan, a performance in homage to Kouoh’s legacy.

 

The performances of In Minor Keys centre the body as a site of knowledge and memory, as well as a political vessel for collective resistance and healing. The call is to breathe and listen to the music that resides in the water, air, fire, and earth. Movement, sound, forms of wandering, and other poetic gestures will counter proscenium staging, instead directly connecting with the spaces of the exhibition, its visitors, and extending into the Giardini della Biennale and Giardino delle Vergini at the Arsenale.

A procession of poets will take place in the Giardini della Biennale, inspired by Koyo’s Poetry Caravan, a voyage she undertook with nine African poets from Dakar to Timbuktu in 1999. The performance honours her memory and opens a space for poetry and storytelling. It pays homage to the griots; those who seek the source; those who, in Koyo’s words, “have carried salt and gold on the backs of the camels, in the desert, and in the canoes, in fulfillment of the human dream to spread the wings of knowledge and power. They joined those who for centuries carried the stories of the people and their lives”.

En route from Dakar to Timbuktu, the poets recited and incanted to comprehend the terrain they traversed, to assuage fatigue and dispel danger. In the gardens of Venice, poets will assemble to form a chorus vested with the power of the word, the groundswell of recital and spiritual healing.