How to reconcile the extreme speed at which the islands are changing, how to
put in relation with the extreme past? The digital and the analogue, the tactile and textured materiality with the disembodied
vinyl pop art?
At the core are two myths intertwined: that of a speaking tree that gives fruits that are alive and which
speak to humans, and that of a lost continent where giants sculpted the mountains: Lemuria.
Here the two myths enable
the re-imagination of the fruits of the speaking tree as big-nosed rock-like creatures. The tree (the Vacoas or Pandanus)
itself has many uses, and its fibre was used for paper making, producing here maps of an ocean which is fast changing: soon
some islands will disappear (the Maldives), while others like Mauritius may lose their coastlines and their beautiful hotels
...
A snapshot then, of changing times down there, in the Global South, in that link between Asia and Africa.
About the ArtistHans Ramduth, born 1970, Mauritius, grew up and studied Art History in Shantiniketan,
an alter-modernist art university, near Kolkata in lndia. A multi-disciplinary creative and academic, he has worked variously
as cartoonist, puppeteer, documentary film maker and voice actor both for local and international audiences. He has authored
one book in 2007 on the post-independence visual arts of Mauritius, and then embarked on a PhD, on the dynamics of identity
construction in the field of visual culture of Mauritius (completed in 2015).
He has been a curator, member of selection
panels and as a member of the UNESCO African team for the 2005 Convention, advised Mauritian government on the creative policies
of the island. His visual work ranges from video and animation, to installation and paper-making and drawing. He is interested
in Global South cultural responses to the multi-dimensional crisis of the Anthropocene.
hans Ramduth is currently teaching
at the art department of Mahatma Gandhi Institute and he is the current Artist in Residence at the Museumsquartier Vienna
Residency Program.
www.mqw.aVen/institutions/q21
/artists-in-residence/hans-ramduthDuration: 16 November 2023 - 15 January 2024
Opening Hours: daily from
10:00 - 20:00
curated by Luzius Bernhard
dieangewandte.at -
digitalekunst.click
