Shiraz Bayjoo, artist in residency at the Cité internationale des arts, presents his first exhibition in France at the Fondation H Lo Sa La Ter Ruz [On the Red Earth], curated by Ilaria Conti.
Expanding on his research into the colonial histories linking his native Mauritius to surrounding territories such as Madagascar, the artist presents a new series of works created specifically for the exhibition and highlighting the complex socio-political entanglements that have shaped the Indian Ocean.
Presented on both levels of the Fondation H - Paris, Lo Sa La Ter Ruz is a critical reflection and homage to the resilient genealogies that have structured communities and transmitted knowledge through generations of colonised people, despite the crimes against humanity and nature they have faced. Drawing on Shiraz Bayjoo's extensive research in French archives, the works in the exhibition propose new conceptual and material strategies of knowledge production, challenging the principle of extraction from the colonial past.
The exhibition concludes with Searching for Libertalia (2019), a video work that interweaves several historical narratives around Madagascar: the story of Captain Misson and his supposedly egalitarian pirate colony, the slave trade policy of the French East India Company, and the independence movements of the 1940s against the French occupation. Deploying a diachronic narrative in a synchronic visual space, Shiraz Bayjoo highlights the shifting but recurring challenges underlying the Malagasy struggle against colonization.
Shiraz Bayjoo (United Kingdom/Mauritius) is in residency at the Cité internationale des arts as part of the "Cité internationale des arts x Fondation H - Paris" partnership.