Behind your body
Poster: collage, acrylic, projection
1200x800mm
Saint-Étienne/France, 2018
Ta-Nehisi Coates is an American writer. In his book Between the World and Me, he describes the challenges of living on the streets in the 1960s as a young Black man. Coates discusses the physical distortions he endured and emphasizes the necessity of relying solely on himself for safety, akin to Jean-Dominique Bauby's experience in “le scaphandre et le papillon”. Coates conveys a sense of isolation, striving to prove to the world that he is not dead inside. In this narrative, the body is contorted simply by the act of surviving on the streets. Inspired by this, I envisioned a choreography depicting a body in confrontation—a discordant body pushing its boundaries. I projected typography onto a contorted body, integrating text into the choreography. The body becomes confined to its own movement, creating a visual narrative.