Oumar Mbengue Atakosso: Lost and Found

Gris-Gris

Gris-Gris is an African charm or fetish that protects the wearer from evil or brings luck. This use of the word Gris-Gris usually describes a small cloth bag worn on the person. Inside is placed a mixture of one or more of the following: herbs, oils, stones, bones, hair, nails, written text containing Arabic caracters, or other personal items gathered under the direction of a believe for the protection of the owner.

Project research

The project Lost and Found is about the ‘post modern immigrant’, and what an individual, traveling through space and time has to lose or gain in their encounter with the destination, in this case, an encounter with the ‘West’.

The visual research that comprises the installation is based on three aspects that are embodied by the notion of homothecy. In this work, homothecy is a metaphor to describe one point in space from different points of view. Think of Russian dolls, one inside the other, geometrically occupying the same point, yet having a different relation to the outside world because of their relationship to each other:

The algebraic and arithmetical relation between what is lost and found based on the notion qualitative gain.

Whether or not mathematicaly the immigrant’s newly found ‘values’ can replace the lost values.