Ngnima Sarr

I believe that the first place to conquer deep-seated mutations is the imaginary. “Odyssey in Utero” is a journey through space, time, memory and territory, with the Uterus as its vessel. It’s about exploring existential questions through the perspective of the female body. I trust in the evocative power of words, which leads me to want to use the creative and regenerative power of the Uterus as a power to act. To do so, I use the practice of the circle as a space transmuted into a uterine safe space. Where body, words, music, and images are all paths towards a cartography of the self and the world to transform. I tested this device in the pilot version of the project at Women’s Prison in Fresnes, for two months with a group of female inmates. The experience revealed a principle of healing, even self-revolution, intrinsic to what I call “ritual performance”. The sceno-poetic gesture of ritual enables us to metabolize what is evoked by words. It allows us to sign our presence in the world, and triggers new ways of seeing ourselves and relating to the world. As part of my residency at the Villa Albertine, I hope to deepen my knowledge of this device by co-leading a creative laboratory with African American women and artists ready to explore the body’s trans-generational memory. Thus, in conversation with dancers and/or choreographers figuring past, present and future gestures that carry this memory, through performance art. With a view to a future installation, I’d like to meet with local actors and artists, to imagine what would be the best interactive object in the field of digital art, to navigate the mysterious territories that black women’s wombs both carry and are. Finally, I’d like to document all these explorations with sound and video recordings, to build up an archive for an experimental documentary film project.

I believe in a necessary trans-generational healing of the African diaspora from: the traumatic experiences of slavery and colonialism, and the violent treatment of our bodies in the world. I believe, black women as mothers, bear the most of it, and are central in the process of a collective healing. I chose to lead this work in Atlanta, which holds much of the story of African-American emancipation, and, is at the forefront of conversations on Blackness in the Art world. The Black women in America are historically experiencing a racial and sexual minoration by power structures; double bias that, I, as an African woman in a western world, can relate to. We, in the social body, are the most vulnerable individuals, but also the most resilient and innovative ones. In this research, I will use the triangle as a geometrical form to reflect on. In its center, I wish to place the African American Woman, to dialogue with Body, Memory, and territory. The Triangle refers to the feminine shape, a doorway and a symbolic magnetic pole of attraction and mutation. It too, echoes to the routes of the transatlantic trade for a symbolic new morphing of the circulation of Black bodies. I want this research to be an exchange, a shared experience with actors like ADAMA, Rainna Brown founder and art director of the Komanse dance Theater who enhance a diaspora sense of belonging through art. I would love to interview the pioneer of Black Feminism, founder of the Women’s research and resource center Beverly Guy-Sheftel. Using music as a tool to reach liminal spaces, I would like to meet with the artist Okori Johnson.