Marame Kane & Bamar Kane

We grew up with two languages: Wolof, our mother tongue, and French, the official language. The first is still our comfort language, the one we use to express joy or weariness, the one in which we annoy each other, insult each other and, since we’ve been living in France, the one we use when we don’t want other people to understand us.

We are the Kanes. It’s pronounced “Kane” in our language. We’d be tempted to say it’s spelled the way it sounds, but unfortunately, we soon realized not everyone hears the same thing. In France, the name is too exotic; people forget that there’s a silent “e”, so we become the “Kané”.

No doubt we’ll be the “Kayns” in the United States. It seems to have a better ring to it, and it will remind people of the eponymous Citizen. But it still isn’t us.

What about you? At what point do you get tired of having to spell out your name?

Marame has thought a lot, especially in the last ten years, about her identity as a black woman living in France, and about the roles of her mother tongue and her imposed language in the course of her life. So it naturally occurred to her to turn it into a graphic novel. She began working on a semi-autobiographical project incorporating interviews with African and Afro-Caribbean women living in French-speaking regions (West Africa, Metropolitan France, Overseas France).

The stories Bamar writes feature a lot of characters who wonder about their identity. With this project, he furthers his exploration as a black man, born in French-speaking Africa, who arrived in France as a young adult.

The aim of our residency is to create a dialogue with the same communities in the United States, only from a different linguistic perspective.

What has the so-called “powerful” language given you? What has it deprived you of?

We have nonetheless adopted the French language, which we respect and love to use. When we are with non-French speakers, it is almost a cause for pride, or a means of seduction. But we keep hinting that we have another, less well known but equally rich and beautiful language.

Do you know where your name comes from? Are you willing to give it up in order to be accepted?

The subject of our residency is ASSIMILATION: LANGUAGES & FAMILY NAMES.

In the short term, Bamar will make a documentary on people we will interview in their environments (social venues, home, places of worship…).

In the medium term, Marame will publish a graphic novel featuring comic strips, texts, and collages, grouping together the interviews from all the different regions.

We will rely on community venues and stakeholders to find our target population (cultural centers, universities, art collectives, places of worship, etc.).

The United States is one of the five countries with the highest immigration rates. Immigration goes hand in hand with issues of identity, whether it’s our own, or that of the “host” country.

For this project, we will need to travel around the American Southeast – New Orleans, Atlanta, Miami, and Washington, DC – as those regions are crossroads for black communities from various cultures.

We will focus on the African (Senegal, Nigeria, Ghana, etc.), Afro-Caribbean (Haiti, Jamaica, etc.), Afro-Latin American, and Black American communities, prioritizing the narratives of women and other gender minorities.