Linda Lamignan, Together we arrived to the shore (Installation view). Courtesy of the artist & Lagune Ouest.
Press release, July 2023
Time is for most of us an abstract form. Its speed is relative, and it moves like a hybrid between progress and regression. In time, there is a certain expectation of development while striving for the preservation of the status quo. Throughout time, stories and traditions are carried, renewed and preserved through oral transmissions and iterations.
Science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin emphasised with the text The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction (1986) the container as the core of the narrative of our human existence. The container, whether it is a bag for collecting seeds or a fictional novel for storing stories of human emotions and actions.
In this regard, time becomes a container. A container for the lives that have been lived and are being lived. However, stories, traditions and memories can also be carried through craftsmanship and work. As a form of action in which the technique is stored.
In the works Together we arrived to the shore, the sculptures manifest themselves as containers. Elevated on pedestals, cast in aluminum and wax, bottle gourds open themselves to the visitor and the stories, traditions and memories of art. At the same time, they stand as physical symbols of their practical function as containers for collecting crops. Like Le Guin's container which not only stores but also receives grain as well as accounts of a lived life. The openness to narratives that the aluminum and wax cast bottle gourds posses is also an invitation to the viewers to approach the exhibited works in the same way.
– Excerpt from a text by Xenia Brown Pallesen (Written in connection with the Linda Lamignan’s exhibition those who do not travel never arrive: Carry Your Home, 2021, at Rogaland Kunstsenter, Stavanger, Norway).
Together we arrived to the shore is an exhibition about containing but also about receiving and ultimately sharing. The bottle gourd that carries objects, stories, meanings and the potential for other futures. The sculpture group provided the framework for the live performance by the sound artist Varnrable on the opening day, where the bottle gourds were activated by her compositions, which embedded themselves in the materials and became part of their genealogy.
Linda Lamignan, Together we arrived to the shore (detail). 2021. (Aluminium, petroleum wax with pigment. Series of 10 pieces varying from 85-155 x 30 x 30 cm). Courtesy of the artist & Lagune Ouest.
Linda Lamignan, Together we arrived to the shore (detail). Courtesy of the artist & Lagune Ouest.
Linda Lamignan, Together we arrived to the shore (detail). Courtesy of the artist & Lagune Ouest.
Linda Lamignan, Together we arrived to the shore (Installation view). Courtesy of the artist & Lagune Ouest.
Linda Lamignan, Faha te mi faha fa. 2023 (Petroleum wax with pigment on canvas on wooden board). Courtesy of the artist & Lagune Ouest.
Linda Lamignan, Together we arrived to the shore (detail). Courtesy of the artist & Lagune Ouest.
Linda Lamignan, E dou te mi fa. 2023 (Petroleum wax with pigment on canvas on wooden board. 20 x 20 x 6 cm). Courtesy of the artist & Lagune Ouest.
Linda Lamignan, Together we arrived to the shore (Installation view). Courtesy of the artist & Lagune Ouest.
Varnrable, Fading out, 2016 (Video). Courtesy of the artist & Lagune Ouest.
Varnrable, Fading out, 2016 (Video). Courtesy of the artist & Lagune Ouest.
Performance by Varnrable (still). Courtesy of the artist & Lagune Ouest.
Linda Lamignan is a visual and performance artist whose work tell stories about the experience of floating in between different worlds. Through video, music, objects and performance, Lamignan explores notions related to wandering and diaspora, transformation and love. With an animistic approach, they work with materials connected to the industries, histories, living landscapes and cultural relations between West Africa and Scandinavia. Linda Lamignan holds a BFA from The Norwegian National Academy of Fine Arts (2013) and a MFA from The Danish Art Academy of Fine Arts (2019). Upcoming & recent exhibitions include: Kunsthal Charlottenborg (Copenhagen), Sparebankstiftelsen DNBs Stipendutstilling (Oslo), Musée d'Art Contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul (Québec), Lunds Konsthall (Lund), Copenhagen Contemporary (Copenhagen), Stavanger Kunstmuseum (Stavanger), Rogaland Kunstsenter (Stavanger), Centrum (Berlin), Vermilion Sands (Copenhagen) and Kunsthal Rønnebæksholm (Næstved).
Opening: August 3, 5-8pm.
Exhibition period: August 3-27, 2023.
Opening hours: Wednesday-Friday, 11am-3pm or by appointment.
The exhibition is generously supported by The Danish Arts Foundation