Prix Meurice for Contemporary Art 2011/2012

Mathieu K. Abonnenc

Born 1977, lives in Paris.
Influenced by "creolization," Mathieu K. Abonnenc structures his work around notions of collective and individual memory. For the past two years, his work has centred on Sarah Maldoror's militant film-making in a context of liberation movements in Portuguese-speaking Africa.

Project :
Looking for Awa is a project for a feature-length film that reprises the original script for Guns for Banta, a film shot in 1970 in Guinea-Bissau by Sarah Maldoror. Looking for Awa returns to the various narratives and ideals of a troubled time: the end of struggles for independence in Africa, America's defeat in Vietnam, and the intensification of the Cold War, which it sets against Africa's economic and political upheavals at the turn of the 21st century. Forty years on, Looking for Awa is a "future remake," as much an examination of militant filmmaking of the 1960s and 70s as of Pan-Africanism to better identify its contemporary legacy.

Exhibitions :
Serralves Foundation, Porto, Portugal, March 2012.

Keys :
Fondation Serralves, Porto, 2012
La Ferme du Buisson, Noisiel, Orphelins de Fanon, 2011
Marcelle Alix, Paris, A Minor Sense of Didacticism, 2011
Gasworks, London, 2011
Manifesta 8, Murcia, Spain, 2010
Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Seconde Main, 2010.