Exhibited at the National Gallery – in « Face of Us » 2023
« GLOBAL MARRONNAGE ? » – A dialogue between a sculpture and a photo.
The centerpiece of the dialogue is a mask to deceive facial recognition, directly inspired by the maroon technique of camouflage used during the war against the English.
The leave chosen (coffee, ganja and sugar cane), not native from Jamaica, spoke nevertheless about Jamaican identity and the global/local economy.
In these last years Jamaica (as a lot of other countries) is discussing the use of facial recognition by private operators and by the government.
If maybe useful in fighting crime, it raises a lot of questions on the tightly invasive on private life and on possible misuse of all these datas collected and kept, which could easily become a mass surveillance or control tools.
A way to hidden personal identity when affirming Jamaican identity and, at the same time, questioning it, at the moment where more than 75% of the Jamaican coffee is exported to Japan, where the ganja business is not yet really having benefits for the traditional small farmers but meanwhile authorization were given to import ganja from Canada and where international company as Campari are closing Jamaican sugar factory to buy molasse from abroad to produce “local” Rum.
A mask in the form of a question: what might marronnage be in today’s global world?
Photo by Marina Burnel
Model: Candice Dryden
Stage direction: The Girl and the Magpie