Political Awareness and Contemporary Africa: An Interview with Hamedine Kane

Hamedine Kane (b. 1983, Mauritania) is a contemporary artist and filmmaker based between Brussels, Dakar and Paris. His body of work explores borders and nomadic identity, and is focused on contemporary Africa and its cultural heritage spread across the globe. Kane’s film “La Maison Blue” (The Blue House), about the artist Alpha, who lives in a refugee camp in France known as the “Calais Jungle”, was awarded a special mention by the jury at the 2020 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). In the following interview, the artist shares his thoughts on the global refugee crisis, his artistic practice and the multi-layered installation that will be presented at the 14th Kaunas Biennial.

You were once trained as a librarian. How did you get into art? What role literature gets to play in your body of work now?

Yes, I worked in libraries and documentation centres, in Africa and then in Europe, for several years. This transition was almost natural.

My start in art is linked to and owes a lot to my experience in the book trade. I spent a lot of time reading and sharing my readings in the working-class districts of Nouakchott.

Today, the object of the book, as a form and as a tool for transmission, sharing and connection can often be found in my body of work.

One could also say that certain literate inspires me. I am particularly interested in literary movements and writers from the South. At the moment I am very interested in African-American literature, Caribbean literature and the literature of the black diasporas in Europe.

In your body of work, you often address the notion of exile and explore the issues of migration.  How did you become interested in these themes? 

I am most interest in moving around and wandering. It is something that Gilles Deleuze calls “deterritorialization”.

Generally speaking, the current situation of refugees and migrants in the world should concern us all. It is one of the most important issues of our time, of our world, and it questions our humanity.

The way refugees are treated around the Mediterranean and at Europe’s external borders, is a scandal, a disgrace.

It is no better in the USA at the border with Mexico, and we see the same poor treatment of refugees in the Balkans and Eastern Europe.

For all these reasons, these concepts interest me and play an important part in my body of work.

In 2018, together with fellow artist Stéphane Verlet-Bottéro, you initiated “École des Mutants” (The School of Mutants), a Dakar-based collaborative platform for research, art and activism. Could tell more about the idea, main goal and modus operandi of the school?

“L’École des Mutants” is both a collaborative platform with ever changing members in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Caribbean, and also a space for mobilisation and production. It is a space that can be activated everywhere in different ways. For example, by organising people’s assemblies – the so-called mutants’ assemblies. We produce films, edit texts and work in other forms. “L’École des Mutants” is a tool that enables us to look at and question the modern history of Africa and its diasporas around the world. It is a tool that is accessible for everyone.

Currently you’re working on the project called “Trois Américains à Paris” (Three Americans in Paris) as part of your residency at the Cité International des Arts in Paris. Could you tell more about it?

I will be developing a research project on three great black American writers who moved to Paris in the second half of the 20th century: Richard Wright, Chester Himes and James Baldwin, as well as their contemporaries in the USA, particularly during their stay in Europe.

The project takes the form of an action-research project based on a speculative investigation of “situated knowledge”. It will draw on the testimonies of scholars, literary critics, publishers, historians, theorists, geographers, city specialists, tourist guides, hotel owners, residents, and tenants of places of living and celebration.

This composition of testimonies will form the basis of a work in which I will focus on the so-called protest novels of three writers, paying close attention to the experience of violence and the refusal of designation expressed in their works.

Obviously, your practice involves extensive research and personal contact with many different people. What does your typical working day look like?

Oh, there is no such thing as a typical day for me.

One could say I work all the time… I am interested in almost everything. I think about all sorts of things. Things that are just there and that I use at some point to create, make or come up with something.

My projects require a lot of time for research, reading and meetings. All of which I enjoy very much.

It is a world I live in!

What are you working on for the 14th Kaunas Biennial?

For the Kaunas Biennial, we are going summon and invoke the work of the great Senegalese writer and film-maker Ousmane Sembène. He is considered to be the father of modern African cinema. He was a committed and visionary artist. We are going to pay tribute to him and create something continuous using his work. It is going to be a large, never-before-seen installation, with various elements of film and sound, as well as woodcuts, textile and other details.

If I’m not mistaken, you are also preparing something in collaboration with Kaunas National Theatre? It would be interesting to hear more about that.

The project with the Kaunas National Theatre is in the early stages of construction. However, very soon it will be complemented by a collaboration with Raw Material Company art centre in Dakar. It will follow on from what we are preparing for the Kaunas biennial.

We are going to try and imagine a fictional meeting and conversation between two sacred monsters: Sembène Ousamne and Jonas Mekas.