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Europe

Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc
ça va, ça va, on continue

When watching ça va, ça va, on continue for the first time, one keeps wondering: is all of this true? Did it happen for real? If we pay attention, if we listen, we discover the clues the artist left along the way: this voice is a fiction, says the one coming from what seems to be an old school recorder. Using the tools of documentary, Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc delivers a fictional narrative informed by very real elements. Between the first scene, a restaging of the Angolese author and revolutionary Pepetela’s theatre piece A Corda (1979), and the last monologue, which translates an excerpt of Yearning: Race, Gender and Cultural Politics (1990) by afrofeminist theoretician bell hooks, we also encounter archival images the artist found from the Mario Soares Foundation. Excerpts of Sarah Maldoror’s films and footage of The People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola also intertwine, foregrounding the part children and women played in the movement before 1966. Combined, these existing artistic and intellectual productions nourish an entirely made-up story filled with imaginary characters, creating multiple layers of voices that both narrate and question silenced histories. Kleyebe Abonnenc uses his work to highlight forgotten historical events and people and, by doing so, contributes to writing another collective memory. To this end, he examines his own trajectory to address the production of hegemonic cultural contents and their colonial legacy. This is why, in ça va, ça va, on continue, fiction not only reflects on how Angola’s history and liberation process has been remembered, but also on what it entails to create new representation and, therefore, on Abbonenc’s position as an activist filmmaker. How should we rewrite the parts of History that have been concealed? And, more importantly, who should do it?

Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc’s practice engages with the cultural hegemonies that form the basis for the evolution of contemporary society. Kleyebe Abonnenc uses video, photography, installation, drawing, and exhibition projects to raise questions about imperial histories and their effects on the former colonies of developed countries. Examining the role of images and representations in the construction of these histories and the identities that result from it, the artist interprets and translates these sources. Kleyebe Abonnenc’s work grapples with why certain things are lost and how to make them exist again. The artist confronts the persistence of politically and culturally charged images in order to replace them with others, and by refusing to show terror while making it palpable, his work reflects on the means of "decolonizing culture”.

This artwork is licensed by KADIST for its programs, and is not part of the KADIST collection.