In Kisii is a poetic voyage through Kisii town, Kenya. From the still image of a truck stopped on the curbside of the bustling city, images from three moments in time rise to the surface.
This video was realized following participation in the Kistrech Poetry Festival.
Autoportrait de Gotlib pour la couverture de Rubrique-à-brac Tome 4, Dargaud, 1973
En 1971, j’ai découvert la série de livres Rubrique-à-brac. Ç’a été un évènement catalyseur qui m’a initié à l’humour absurde, caustique et fantaisiste de Gotlib, mais qui m’a aussi fait découvrir le monde où je vivais. J’habitais Lévis et je savais – je ne sais plus comment, mais je l’avais su – que les livres de Gotlib étaient en vente à la librairie Archambault dans le Vieux-Québec (à l’époque située sur la rue St-Jean). Je partais de chez moi avec l’argent que j’avais gagné à livrer les journaux à domicile et je me rendais au traversier pour aller à Québec. De là, je montais jusqu’à la librairie. La route qui menait vers le rire était parsemée d’inconnu et de surprises et chaque fois que j’achetais un nouveau tome le monde entier m’apparaissait plus éclatant. Gotlib m’a fait découvrir un humour « glacé et sophistiqué » comme il le disait si bien et m’a fait explorateur de la vie. Merci Marcel Gotlib !
5th International Video Poetry Festival
55 VIDEO ARTISTS & POETS FROM 21 COUNTRIES
6 HOURS SHOW
SATURDAY10/12 STARTS 20.00
GREECE
H. Bozini + P. Papadopoulos | Th. Panou | Y. Deliveis
F. Averbach (Void Network) T. Kapouranis | A. Chatziioannidi
Ch. Sakellaridis | V. Velli | Y. Lianos (Lokatola Collective)
S. Oikonomidis |Demi Sam (Group Avgo) | K. Shabanova
THAILAND
R. Nurfarida
INDIA
S. Singh
MEXICO
P. R. Aranda | C. Bustamante
AUSTRIA
V. Sebert
VENEZUELA
A. M. Giner
BOLIVIA
L. Sellars
SOUTH KOREA
F. Harvor
ARMENIA
E. Boghosian
IRAN
M. Fathollahi
CANADA
S. Otter | M. Depatie | V. LeBlanc | D. H. Dugas
GERMANY
S. Wiegner
ITALY
P. Chiesa-S. Cinematografica
F. Gironi+G. Daverio | F. Bonfatti
ENGLAND
D. Douglas | C. Cameron | B. Dickinson | E. Cay
M. Piatek | A. Cook | O. Smith | J. L. Ugarte| D. Taylor | M. Lland
USA
S. Chang | H. Dewbery | S. Negus | H. Gray | M. Mullins
H. P. Moon | C. St. Onge | R. Anderson | T. Becker
RUSSIA
T. Moshkova | C. Preobrazhenskaya
ARGENTINA
L. Focarazzo
BELGIUM
P. Bogaert & J. Peeters
AUSTRALIA
M. Goldberg | I. Gibbins
SPAIN
Is. Martin | C. Moreno
SWITZERLAND
A. Prundaru
O καιρός της Τέχνης πέρασε πια. Το θέμα τώρα είναι να πραγματώσουμε
την Τέχνη, να κατασκευάσουμε αποτελεσματικά και σε όλα τα επίπεδα της ζωής ό,τι παλιότερα υποχρεωτικά
παρέμενε μια καλλιτεχνική αυταπάτη ή μια ανάμνηση που ο άνθρωπος ονειρευόταν ή συντηρούσε μονόπλευρα.
Δεν μπορούμε να πραγματώσουμε την Τέχνη παρά καταργώντας την. Ωστόσο, θα πρέπει να αντιταχτούμε
στην σημερινή κατάσταση της κοινωνίας, που καταργεί την Τέχνη αντικαθιστώντας την με την αυτόματη κίνηση
ενός θεάματος ακόμα πιο ιεραρχικού και παθητικού.Μπορούμε να καταργήσουμε την Τέχνη μόνο αν την πραγματώσουμε
organised by +the Institue [for Experimental Arts]
supported by Void Network
Apples and Oranges (2015) will be playing at the 5th International Video Poetry Festival in Athens (Winter 2016) as well as Illumination (2016) – a collaboration with Valerie LeBlanc.
About Void Network and +the Institute [for Experimental Arts]
The yearly International Video Poetry Festival 2016 will be held for the fifth time in Athens, Greece. Approximately 2500 people attended the festival last year.
There will be two different zones of the festival. The first zone will include video poems, visual poems, short film poems and cinematic poetry by artists from all over the world (America, Asia, Europe, Africa). The second zone will include cross-platform collaborations of sound producers and music groups with poets and visual artists in live improvisations.
The International Video Poetry Festival 2016 attempts to create an open public space for the creative expression of all tendencies and streams of contemporary visual poetry.
I have participated in many poetry festivals, each series of events is unique, but the fourth Kistrech Poetry Festival had something that others don’t have. To begin, there are not many venues for international poets or artists in Africa, the economic realities of the continent dictate this scarcity of opportunities. Christopher Okemwa, the director of the festival has been working hard to create an event where the audience and the poets can share insights and discussions. Another thing that made this festival standout was the fact that our group, the invited poets and a large section of the audience, were always together. We were together in the conference room, at lunch breaks and we were together in buses travelling to different locations. This created a sense of belonging and gave us a chance to get to know each other more closely.
Most of the Festival events took place at the main campus of the Kisii University from October 3rd until October 8th with writers from Nigeria, the USA, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway, Canada, and Kenya. Student participants came from both Kisii University and Nairobi University. A series of readings by internationally based, Kenyan poets as well as student poets took place on the Kisii University Campus, at the Genesis Preparatory School, the St. Charles Kabeo High School and on the shores of Lake Victoria. In addition to these, papers were also presented: Beatrice Ekesa (Nairobi University) talked about issues of globalization in the context of Spoken Word in Kenya; Martin Glaz Serup (Denmark) presented the Holocaust Museum, a conceptual post-productive witness literature that deals with the representation of Holocaust; Eric Francis Tinsay Valles (Singapore) delivered a text about trauma in poetry; Seth Michelson (USA) talked about the process of translation and the practice of human freedom; Micheal Oyoo Weche (Kenya) spoke of oral poetry and aesthetic communication practiced by children within the Luo tribe; Tony Mochama (Kenya) discussed the modernity of African poetry in Kenya; Godspower Oboido (Nigeria) compared Nigerian poet Christopher Okigbo with Russian poet Alexander Pushkin; Margaret N. Barasa (Kenya) explained the convergence of language and culture in Manguliechi’s Babuksu after-burial oratory and Valerie LeBlanc and myself (Canada) presented our poetic work created within the Everglades National Park biosphere.
This was the first time that the Festival was held during the University’s Cultural Week. The campus was alive with students and many attended the festival’s lectures and presentations. Throughout the festival, there was a constant flow of energy, of shaking hands, of being truly part of the whole, like the Festival’s program states.
Here are two key moments, two events that made an significant impression on me. Both happened on October 6rd 2016.
GENESIS PREPARATORY PRIMARY SCHOOL
We were on our way, to the Genesis Preparatory Primary School to meet and to read to the children. As with every morning, the light was intensely beautiful; the sky blue and the sun hot. At the school, three hundred children, dressed in their dark green uniforms with green and white checker shirts were waiting for us. They actually had been waiting all year for this moment and had a program of poetry, songs and dances prepared for the occasion. We all sat outside in the courtyard under the sun and under the shades of pine trees, on blue chairs and yellow chairs, on green chairs and magenta chairs. There was electricity in the air. A teacher came up front, to welcome us and invited a group of students to take place on the stage. Many students had a chance to perform poetry and to sing. To my surprise, a lot of the songs were in French. The Principal told me later that they wanted them to learn English, Kiswahili and French as many countries in the regions speak French. After that, it was our turn to read. Gunnar Wærness (Norway) created a song for a crow that was perched in a tree above us; Martin (Denmark) read 100 words from a children’s book; Jennifer Karmin (USA) involved the children with a participative poetry reading and so on.
After the readings, we were invited to plant trees on the school grounds. Poets planting trees: ‘Poet-trees’ said someone. The holes were already dug and the little seedlings were sitting in a wheel barrel, all ready to go. As each poet was busy planting, students would gather around, looking at our techniques and cheering for the forest to come. Many of the holes were sewn with yellow flowers that looked similar to squash flowers. This seemed to present a wish to protect and encourage the future growth of the trees. The man in charge of the grounds made sure that the dirt was well packed and that the seedlings were straight. When we left it looked like a little forest had been added to the valley.
BOGIAKUMU VILLAGE
When we stepped out of the bus, I don’t think any of us expected to be greeted with such enthusiasm. A musician was already playing his nyatiti, an eight-string instrument, as loud as he could. There was a lot of laughing, clapping and dancing. In the blink of an eye, we were dancing as well, which generated even more laughter. Then, each of the poets was taken in charge by one or two villagers for a personal tour. I left with my two hostesses and Cornelius, a Kisii University student who was translating the exchanges. In Kiswahili I said ‘good morning’ to the women. They both laughed. Cornelius told me that in the afternoon, the custom is to say, ‘good afternoon.’ I wished that I had a pen and a piece of paper to add this to my list of Kiswahili phrases. I repeated it in my head a few times like a mantra as we walked on the main road until we took a path down the hill. The earth is red. Everything is lush. The air is warm and humid. The pathways are incredibly complex, there are paths going everywhere. We walk past mango trees, papaya trees, banana trees, avocado trees, sugar cane and cornfields. Here and there a goat tied to a post looks at us as we go by. Cornelius tells me that the two women are widows and are cultivating their plots and raising their animals by themselves. We finally arrive at a house. As we go in, a few little chicks scramble to get out. The air inside the house is heavy and the sunlight makes the dust appear like diamonds floating in the room. The walls are covered with a lacework-like fabric. I notice two pictures on one of the walls and go to them. They are images of two smiling men. Under the images are their names and two dates. The men are dead. They are the husbands of the two women. The oldest man was born in 1963 and the younger in 1985. The images and the frames look old, as if they had been on the wall for a long time, but the younger man died just a couple of months earlier. After a while, we pull away from the wall and sit on couches. From there I can feel the heat radiating from the tin roof. Cornelius tells me that when one of the women’s husband died, she had to wait for planting the corn and this is why hers is so short compared to the rest. There is a silence. We hear the wind rustling through the nearby sugar canes. At that moment, we also feel the absence of this husband. Then the older woman gets up and goes out. We follow her lead back onto the paths. Red soil. Corn fields. The sun feels good. We arrive at the second home. The woman opens the door. The light floods into the main room. It is very hot and very bright. We sit and rest there for a while.
I can’t remember much from this house; my mind was still filled with the other place. Then we were back on the main road. There were many young people walking to the river to get water. It looked like they just came back from school. All carried yellow jugs. The river, I am told, is not far. I asked Cornelius to teach me how to say, ‘How are you’, and then I repeat this to a group of young boys. They all laugh. Cornelius tells me that there is a difference to whether you speak to one person or many. He teaches me how to say ‘how are you’ to many people, which I say many times during the walk back to the village centre.
The weather was turning. Big dark clouds were gathering and it started to rain. Instead of eating outside, we all went inside a large house to share a meal. We had yams and uji, a porridge made from ground millet. By the meal’s end, the weather had cleared up and we were invited to go back outside. We sat on plastic chairs in a big circle. The musician was in the middle with his instrument and dancers came from behind him. Eventually, it was the poets’ turn to join in the dance. Later, as we walked back through the pathways toward the bus, we saw a rainbow arching over the valley.
KISII POSTSCRIPT
The night before we left, two women were killed by the police at the market. Some people at the hotel heard what sounded like fireworks. I heard nothing. But two women died that night. Then there was a riot and wooden stands were thrown into a bonfire as people protested. In the morning as we drove down the road, the market looked empty, here and there were piles of charred wood. A few days later, the University of Kisii introduced new fee payment rules for its students. This change resulted in a massive riot, this time by students. A fourth-year woman student was shot in the head by a stray bullet, but survived. The Daily Nation (Nairobi) newspaper, reported that 10 students had been arrested while the Standard (Nairobi), mentioned that more than 30 students were arrested. According to the newspapers, the fee collection office and a School of Law office were set ablaze. Images of soldiers on the grounds of the University were unsettling to see. Many of our young poet friends from the Kisii University and University of Nairobi (Elly Omullo, Ombui Omoke, Roberto de Khalifa) wrote poignant texts on their Facebook walls, putting words to what was happening around them.
THITIMA (energy)
In this landscape
of shovelled earths
and un-shovelled earths
of arched goats
looking thoughtful
of speeding Boda-Bodas
and Boda-Boda sheds
In this land of Churches
and Choma zones
of men with shovels
walking empowered
dreaming of self-sufficiency
of yams and sweet potatoes and bananas
In this cosmology of paths
extending outward
shortcutting everything
In this endless network
of paths of life and death
of paths taken and abandoned
of paths like the energy of the Big Bang
like the music rising
from every bus
every stand
from the music
that envelops everyone
There is no stopping the going
and no stopping the rhythms.
A path goes this way
another one that way
they overlap
become larger
veer between bushes
They are the tentacles
of giant octopus’
dancing a waltz
The neurons
sending electricity
to each limb
light up this
East African night
The paths are
the way to go
the way to come
back home
They are
what is left
of having to go
of wanting to go
They are what is passed down
to the children who in turn
will invent new roads to travel upon
and new rhythms to walk along.
Daniel H. Dugas
October 9, 2016
GODS
God is everywhere!
Especially as decals on buses
GOD ALMIGHTY
in bold letters
racing on a dirt road
God in the middle of the wilderness
incarnated in every speeding Boda-Boda
God is everywhere!
I see him
in the diesel fumes of buses
I see him
in the whirlpools
of papers and bags
in the tails
of small goats
eating in ditches
I see him
in the yellow plastic jugs
balancing on heads
I see him in the tarps
flapping in the wind
in the wind that controls everything
I see him
in the smoke of every fire
of this never ending choma zone
He is here,
everywhere,
present on each kernel of corn.
Daniel H. Dugas
Oct 10, 2016
*
I would like to thank the Canada Council for the Arts and the New Brunswick Arts Board for their support. / Je remercie le Conseil des arts du Canada et le Conseil des Arts du Nouveau-Brunswick pour leur soutien.
Illumination: Valerie LeBlanc and Daniel H. Dugas
for the Poetic License Week, September 3-11, 2016
For this collaborative work, we have juxtaposed texts to appear as graffiti on the hull of a boat. The left and right hands both speak to the challenges of forging a path through life. The audio, wind from the sea, speaks for everyone.
We have been (Valerie LeBlanc and Daniel H. Dugas) invited to participate in the Kistrech Poetry Festival 2016 in Kissi, Kenya, October 3 – 8, 2016. We will also present a paper entitled Flow: Big Waters at Kisii University. We would like to thank the Canada Council for the Arts and the New Brunswick Arts Board for their assistance.
Kistrech Poetry Festival
Welcome to the 4th edition of Kistrech Poetry Festival in Kenya. This year’s event is seen to be unique since it will run alongside Kisii University Cultural Week. The venue, being at the University ground, will accord visiting poets an opportunity to interact and share with University student-poets, upcoming writers and lecturers.
KISTRECH POETRY FESTIVAL IN KENYA 2016
The Word is Not Alone. It is Part of the Whole
KISII UNIVERSITY
3rd to 8th October 2016
On July 5, 1946, five days after the explosion of a nuclear bomb on Bikini Atoll, French automobile engineer and clothes designer Louis Reard unveiled the first bikini bathing suit to the world. It was daring and shocking. Reard’s inspiration was the nuclear blast on the tiny Pacific Ocean atoll of the same name. The French newspaper Le Monde said that the word ‘bikini’ was as lashing as the atomic explosion, that it had annihilated clothing as we knew it, and brought forward an extreme minimization of modesty. Some called it ‘the first a(na)tomic bathing suit in the world’ (… la première bombe an-atomique).
But the bikini is not a modern idea; the Greeks and the Romans had it all figured out. In 1959, the Italian archaeologist, Gino Vinicio Gentili, excavated the ‘bikini girls mosaic’ at the Villa Romana del Casale. This artwork entitled Coronation of the Winner shows young women in two-piece suits performing various sports. Perhaps the discovery of the bikini girls mosaic paved the road for even more daring inventions. In 1964 fashion designer Rudi Gernreich unveiled the monokini, the first topless swimsuit for women. Gernreich believed that the prefix “bi” as in bikini meant two. He was wrong. Similarly to the famous butterfly’s wings in Brazil, this mistake started to create a series of storms across the globe. All kinds of swimsuits were invented based on the same assumption: microkini, tankini, trikini and now the famous burkini.
According to the Wikitionary, kini means many things. It is an alcoholic beverage in Hawaïan, a woman in To’abaita, the adverb now in Malay, to nip in Maori and KINI is a radio station in Nebraska. Unfortunately, kini has nothing to do with the lower part of a two-piece swimsuit. By naming the Islamic inspired swimsuit burkini, Aheda Zanetti, the fashion designer who created the garment, only perpetuated the misconception. There is nothing ‘kini’ about the burkini. In fact, the burkini is similar to the 1800’s bathing gowns that embodied Victorian ideals of religious morality and prudery. The problem with the construction of this word is that when we talk about the burkini, we invoke the bikini. In our minds, we allude to revealing the body of the swimmer, while in fact the burkini is covering that same body. It is an oxymoron like ‘sweet agony’ or ‘true myth’. If the bikini was born out of an explosion, the burkini is closer to an implosion. The bikini fashion started with a bang while the burkini is threatening to close the trend with a whimper.
Nevertheless, the dress code war that is being waged in France is not new. What is sanctioned and what is forbidden to wear on a beach is part of a long-time struggle to break away from the iron collar of modesty. In 1921, Louise Rosine, a writer from California, was arrested in Atlantic City for rolling down her stockings and showing her bare knees on a public beach. She fought back saying that it was ‘none of Atlantic City’s business to roll them up or down’ and she threatened to bring the City to court. Before that, in 1907, the Waverly Shire Council in Sydney, Australia required the wearing of a skirt-like tunic by male bathers. Mayor, R. G. Watkins said:
After contact with water… the V-trunks favoured by many of the male bathers show up the figure… in a very much worse manner than if they were nude… people who patronize them should not be compelled to overlook bathers whom they do not agree with.
Soon after, the Sydney bathing costume protests erupted. Thousands of male surf bathing enthusiasts wearing women’s clothing made a point to show the ridiculousness of the proposed regulations.
What we should have learned by now is that people should be permitted to decide for themselves. If people want to wear bikinis, let them wear bikinis, if they want to go to the beach in long swimming gowns, let them do so. We know that “those who look directly at [a nuclear] blast could experience eye damage ranging from temporary blindness to severe burns on the retina.” The problem here is that explosion and implosion are two different ways to detonate nuclear weapons. The advice is not to look at the blast, but in the battle royal between fashion police and morality squads, we have decided to stare.
Le simulacre n’est jamais ce qui cache la vérité – c’est la vérité qui cache qu’il n’y en a pas. Jean Baudrillard
Je croyais que Chirac était du marbre dont on fait les statues.
En réalité il est de la faïence dont on fait les bidets. Marie-France Garaud
L’hôtel Lord Elgin d’Ottawa a été nommé en l’honneur de James Bruce, le 8e comte d’Elgin, gouverneur général du Canada-Uni de 1847 à 1854. Dans une alcôve du hall d’entrée de l’hôtel, on a placé un buste en son honneur. Comme j’aime toucher à tout, j’ai tapé sur sa tête et j’ai été surpris de constater que l’homme n’était pas fait en marbre, mais en fibre de verre! Je me disais qu’on avait dû mettre l’original en lieu sûr, que ce faux marbre n’était là que pour des questions d’assurances ou de nettoyage. Peu importe la raison, son état révélait un lien de filiation des plus intéressant.
Le père de James s’appelait Thomas Bruce, c’était un aristocrate et un homme militaire qui portait plusieurs titres dont celui de 7e compte d’Elgin. Au début du 19e siècle, il était ambassadeur britannique à Constantinople, la capitale de l’Empire ottoman. La Grèce qu’on disait « ottomane » à l’époque faisait partie de l’empire et l’ambassadeur, qui avait une fascination toute particulière pour la Grèce, parcourait son territoire comme un véritable golden retriever. La pie voleuse plénipotentiaire, grande receleuse, a enlevé de l’Acropole d’Athènes des centaines de statues et les a vendus au British Museum. Parmi son butin, il y avait 12 statues des frontons, 156 plaques de la frise et 13 métopes; la frise du temple d’Athéna Niké et une cariatide de l’Érechthéion! Ces marbres qu’on appelle maintenant les Marbres d’Elgin (comme quoi le crime paie, et ce même si le 7e comte a vendu le matériel à perte) constituent aujourd’hui l’une des pièces maîtresses du musée britannique. La Grèce réclame depuis longtemps le rapatriement des marbres, mais le musée a toujours prétendu être le gardien du patrimoine culturel de l’humanité et n’a jamais accepté de les rendre.
Notre illustre gouverneur général, grand administrateur colonial, avait un pedigree des plus impressionnants, son beau-père n’était nul autre que John George Lambton, 1er comte de Durham, l’auteur du terrifiant Rapport Durham et son père, on l’a vu, était un statuomaniaque international. Notre comte n’est toutefois pas en reste; il a été vice-roi des Indes et a laissé sa marque sur la scène internationale en ordonnant, durant la seconde guerre de l’opium, la destruction du Palais d’été, jardin impérial de Pékin. Quoi qu’il en soit, la statue du fils en fibre de verre qui siège aujourd’hui à l’hôtel semble être la conséquence d’une certaine justice immanente, comme si le fils payait en substance les crimes de son père. Ce qui est plus drôle, c’est qu’en tapant sur le buste, il sonne creux comme pour nous rappeler que l’Histoire n’est pas aussi pleine qu’elle le clame.
Artiste numérique, poète et musicien, Daniel H. Dugas a participé à des expositions individuelles et de groupe ainsi qu’à plusieurs festivals et événements de poésie en Amérique du Nord, en Europe, au Mexique et en Australie. Son treizième recueil de poésie « émoji, etc. » / « emoji, etc. » vient de paraître aux Éditions Basic Bruegel.
Daniel H. Dugas is a poet, musician, and videographer. He has participated in solo and group exhibitions as well as festivals and literary events in North America, Europe, Mexico, and Australia. His thirteenth book of poetry, 'émoji, etc.' / 'emoji, etc.' has been published by the Éditions Basic Bruegel Editions.
Date : Mars / March 2022
Genre : Poésie / Poetry
Français / English
Horaire
