Month: December 2019

Exhibition centred on the painting by Alphonse Garreau ‘Allégorie de l’abolition de l’esclavage à La Réunion’ (Allegory of abolition of slavery in Reunion)
With an installation by Matilde Fossy ‘Dissiper la Brume’ (Dissipating the Mist)

A historical confrontation

On 20th December 1848, over 60,000 slaves were freed following a speech given on the Place du Gouvernement square in Saint-Denis by Joseph Napoleon Sarda-Garriga, Commissioner of the French Republic. A year later, the artist Alphonse Garreau, who had settled on the island, painted a picture evoking the event. Today, the work is referred to as ‘Allégorie de l’abolition de l’esclavage à la Réunion’.

The artist’s vision is one of power, order and work. The central character is Sarda-Garriga. The painting expresses a clear message: liberty goes hand-in-hand with the obligation to work. The newly freed slaves in the crowd remain totally anonymous, with no power of expression.

Revisiting ‘Allegory …’ by giving a presence to the slaves widens the meaning of this work, steeped in history. The project of the Léon Dierx art gallery consists in combining history and contemporary art.

‘Dissiper la brume’, an installation created especially for the exhibition by the artist Mathilde Fossy, encourages us to follow the meanders of history. The names given to the slaves in 1848, at the heart of Mathilde Fossey’s artistic expression, reflect present-day patronymics, echoing the painting by Garreau, like a new allegory that takes into consideration the temporality of the last 170 years.

 

A three-part exhibition

The first part consists in lithographs and etchings from the collections of various cultural structures of the Departmental Council, all the works being linked to the denunciation of the slave trade and the servile colonial system. From late 18th-century etchings by intellectuals of the French Enlightenment to etchings linked to the first abolition in 1794, from the many etchings criticising the slave trade during the first half of the 19th century to emblematic paintings commemorating the end of slavery in England and France, the visitor follows the historical evolution of the abolitionist discourse and its expression by various artists, through a selection of original works and reproductions.

The second section focuses on the events which took place in Reunion in 1847-1848, through the works of two artists living on this island during that period: Antoine Louis Roussin (1819-1894) and Adolphe Potémont (1828-1883). Through their lithographs, often satirical, they evoke the end of slavery, abolition and the reactions of the population faced with this historical event during the months that overturned the island’s history. The painting by Alphonse Garreau is displayed in this part of the exhibition. Allégorie de l’abolition de l’esclavage à la Réunion’ (Allegory of the abolition of slavery in Reunion) is conserved at the Quai Branly Jacques Chirac Museum in Paris and has returned to Reunion 170 years after its creation.

In the third part, Dissiper la brume (Dissipating the Mist), a work by Mathilde Fossy, takes us beyond the picture itself. The installation invites visitors to wander around a space punctuated by sheets of Plexiglas. The panels have been engraved with the names of slaves freed in 1848, forming a symbolic crowd. The act of making our way between the names also represents a movement between past and present, that each one of us is part of. The choice of the transparent support reflects a desire to strip down, revealing the truth of the event, a certain desire for clarification.

The Villèle historical Museum is an emblematic site representing a specific period in the history of the plantation society, centred around the crops of coffee, cotton and sugar cane.

This former estate, created at the end of the 18th century by the Panon-Desbassayns family, reflects the development of the social and economic organisation of the island up to the 1970s. It evokes the way of life of a family of plantation owners, as well as that of the workers, slaves, indentured workers and small settlers, whose history is linked to that of the masters of the estate.

The purpose of the museum is to reflect the history of the estate through its buildings, gardens, material and immaterial remains, that characterise the site, while at the same time developing a specific museographical circuit focusing on the period of slavery on Reunion island.

In this digital era, setting up a new reference website appeared essential. This digital portal, with direct links to the website of the Villèle historical museum and centred around its collections, its cultural content and its ongoing events, also aims to offer a documentary database consisting of texts by researchers, historians, archaeologists, anthropologists and museum curators, brought together within a scientific committee set up in 2018.

Presented as an updated specialised resource centre around the plantation society, the Desbassayns estate, the history and memory of slavery in Reunion, the arborescence of the site enables web users to access the different sections, each dealing with a specific topic: the French East India Company, families of Plantation owners, the sugarcane economy, the Panon-Desbassayns and Villèle families, the slave trade in the Indian Ocean, the Code Noir, indentured workers, chronology of the abolition of slavery, the cultural heritage of slavery, places of memory etc.

A website for the general public

The texts written by the contributors are often illustrated with iconographic documents conserved in the heritage institutions of Reunion or mainland France. They are aimed both at visitors curious to obtain general information, as well as specialised members of the public (school pupils, students, teachers etc.), wishing to carry out more thorough research and obtain information provided by researchers from different horizons.

An evolving website

The ambitious challenge of the website is ultimately, on the one hand to create a reference digital portal, an information tool dedicated to the plantation society and the history of slavery in Reunion and, on the other hand, to give researchers, heritage structures, artists, associations etc. a free space, enabling them to contribute to the progress of research in the field.

Three emblematic traditional instruments used in traditional Reunionese music, manufactured by three musicians, were added to the collections of the de Villèle Museum on 20th December 2018.

The Kayamb

Created by Firmin Viry, this consists of a sound box made of green aloe and the stems of flowering sugarcane, mounted using string and glue, then filled with wild saffron seeds.

 

The Roulèr or skin drum

Manufactured by Stéphane Grondin, this is an oak barrel with either end cut off and circled with metal, with an ox skin nailed onto one end.

 

The Bob or musical bow

Mounted by Johny Bily, this instrument consists of an amplifying box, made out of an emptied calabash, a rattle (kaskavel) out of plaited screw-pine filled with canna seeds, a bow of yellow wood (ochrosia) and green aloe fibre. It is played by striking it with a stick (tikouti) made of doratoxylon wood.

The website of the Villèle historical museum has been a reality since 2018, thanks to the development of specific software for museum management (Mobydoc) and the resources of the exploitation module Opacweb.

Its content and site arborescence are centred around the museum, its history, its collections and the topics treated, its cultural and pedagogic content and events organised.

www.musee-villele.re

An exhibition reflecting historical knowledge and artistic expression.

A collective work of the imagination created around the names of slaves recorded in the last will and testament of Madame Desbassayns.

– 3300 pupils from 31 junior high schools
– projection of portraits on the facade of the museum, created by the artist Lionel Lauret
– exhibition of artistic works by junior high school pupils on the first floor of the museum until July 2019

An innovative digital, tactile and itinerant cultural tool, ‘Iconotouch’ has been deployed in schools, since the start of the 2018-2019 academic year.

For this commemorative year, Iconotouch offers an exceptional digital experience: users can interact with images linked to slavery, enabling young members of the public to acquire new skills through the use of information and communication technologies.

– Familiarising pupils with the reading of different digital iconographic documents
– Familiarising pupils with the ‘jobs’ done by slaves, the slave trade, fugitive slaves and abolition
– Awareness for pupils around issues of memory, history and citizenship, through local history.

A unique application for mobile phones that can be downloaded for free with quizzes organised around different topics, to test knowledge of the history of slavery.

Aimed at the general public, it is available through the App Store and Play Store platforms.

An evolving application, since December 2018, Kikoné has been proposing 170 questions around six topics linked to slavery: the names of slaves, abolition, work, punishments, culture and beliefs and anthropology-sociology-history.

As from 2019, several hundred other questions will be presented, extended to the history of slavery around the world and through time.

In cooperation with the University of Reunion and the Scientific Committee of the De Villèle Museum, Ph.D. research grants will be set up, funded by the Departmental Council of Reunion

→ 3 grants to be awarded at the start of the 2019 academic year
→ €12,000 per year per student-researcher

Painting: acrylic on sacking, 1992

In homage to the artist William Zitte, the Memorial room of the slave hospital will open out for one of his works : Piéta, created with Antoine Du Vignaux for the exhibition Tet Kaf/Fet Kaf, which was held at the Villèle Museum in 1993.

“Pièta presents a ‘spiritual African’ who could well represent the third possible way forward, replacing the ‘Faithful African’ subjected through pain and abnegation and the ‘Rebellious African’, whose weapons stoke the continuously burning embers.”

Sculpture/installation (iron, wire netting, cellulose, paint, polish, bronze) 2012

A monumental sculpture installed in the gardens of the museum, below the main house.

“An escaped slave among the vegetation, observing the estate of Madame Desbassayns. We wished to symbolise all the rebels who did not accept to be dominated by masters during their existence and who, in order to survive, decided to escape, the only possibility for those wishing to live as free men. The huge size of the work reflects the mental force of the escaped slaves.”
(Nathalie Maillot & Nelson Boyer)

The international conference entitled “Slavery, a subject of history, the challenge of memory” was the first event to be organised around the 170th anniversary of the abolition of slavery, commemorated by the Departmental Council of Reunion. Organised by the Indian Ocean International Historical Association, it was held from 28 November to 1st December 2018.

Set up in 1960 following the first conference of Indian Ocean archivists and historians, held in Antananarivo, the Indian Ocean International Historical Association (IHIOI) aims to promote historical studies and connected topics focusing on Indian Ocean countries.

The historian Prosper Eve, President of the AHIOI, initiated the Indian Ocean history week, as well as the Association of Friends of August Lacaussade. In 2018, in collaboration with the association and in the context of the celebration of the 170th anniversary of the abolition of slavery, they organised a symposium entitled ‘Slavery, subject of History, challenge of memory.’

He considers it essential for there to be repeated commemorations of the abolition of slavery in France. It is essential to fight against oblivion and so that the ‘place of memory’ of abolition of slavery, and beyond, should not become a ‘place of amnesia’, where only oblivion occurs or has occurred, since their memory may appear disturbing, in the context of the current identity and memory issues.

Beyond the questions raised around memory, such a commemoration also has the objective of revealing, through research and historical studies, the various facets of the historical topic that is slavery and, beyond the national story, defining the traces of our history, through a process that is as scientific as possible.

Finally, the repetition of such a commemoration has a pedagogical purpose, aimed not only at the developing public of schoolchildren and university students, but also at citizens in general, confronted with the presence of the shadow of this crime against humanity in the collective imagination and in the society.

The conference brought together 22 specialists around four topics: the diverse forms of abolition, the hybrid nature of slavery in the Indian Ocean, the post-slavery transition and after slavery.