My Grill

Very happy to introduce you to my first comissioned work, a 3m wide x 2m high Grill for the entrance of a domain. Ordered by my father, I designed it, it was constructed by a local retired craftman and set up last week.

Dejavu Collaboration with the Public – I (eye)

Tany, following up on his collaborations with Minibar, Imaginal Disc, Ali, Olivier Gounot and Violaine Prunet, will experiment collaborating with the public.

The idea is to create one collaborative piece of work. The input from spectators will be collected at several stages of conception of a painting via this website and your comments.

Visit www.dejavu-production.com and the post .

First step:
The public – you – provides input for a painting, under any form: a picture, a song, a name, a word, a story, a concept, a colour…

Second step:
Tany will use this input to start working on a painting. At an early stage (painting started but incomplete) the draft will submitted for review by the public.

Third Step:
The public will comment and provide additional suggestions and ideas.

Fourth Step:
Tany will finalize the painting.

This is the first step. Please provide your suggestions by commenting .

Input already gathered: Japanese kanji for “silent execution” ; irony ; cycle within the painting.

The Kingdom In The Sky

We drove south for seven hours until there was no tar on the road anymore. We continued on a dirt track winding in the mountains. The path soon disappeared, melted with the surrounding dry pastures. We followed a rocky trail leading to a bridge over an icy spring. We couldn’t get any further by car. We stopped for lunch and continued walking up the mountain for a few hours. At the top of a 3000m peak, we had finally reached our destination. Surrounded by the magnificent views of golden wheat fields and white topped mountains in the far back, I saw my first African snow. A 10×10cm square of white cold hidden in the shadow of a bush.

No. No, no, no. That’s not a way to put it.

We went to Lesotho to escape civilisation. Yes, that’s why. We reached our lodge, on the flank of a rocky cliff (just after the bridge over the icy spring) literally at the end of the road. Hm. Ok, but it’s very difficult to describe the kind of experience these three days were. Imagine a place with no cars, no roads, yellow grass and white corn; hairy cows; shepherds and horse riders wearing colourful blankets, plastic boots, scary cowls and wacky hats. Mountains and waterfalls. Freezing at night, hot in the sun, life calmly following the pace of daylight. In bed at nine, up at six, endless walks in the immensity. The last day we went horse ridding in the wild. I couldn’t describe it well enough; I’ll only say it’s the most beautiful place I have been in Africa yet. Lesotho. The Kingdom in the sky.

Anecdote! In your face. On the first night at the local restaurant we warm ourselves up in front of the fire. Ooh, soothing. A Chinese comes sits next to us and chats, high there how are you doing. It’s hard for me to understand each and every word he is saying because of is edgy accent. Like stabbing quickly a canvas, it doesn’t make a lot of sense but you get a rough understanding of what’s being represented. He soon leaves, nice to talk to you, see you soon, we put together what we have understood and conclude that he is a student from China who came to work for a season or two in Lesotho (in this place four hours away from any minor city). Elementary my dear Watson. Well this is P-culiar. But it’s not like I care.
On the last day we walk to the closest village to buy traditional blankets. It is the last town before the end of the trail; it is a small town but the last supply point before getting into the wild. As we get there, to our astonishment, three of the four shops (warehouse) were held by Chinese people. A population of a dozens of Asian came all the way from their far away Empire of the Middle to take over the business in that little town in Lesotho. I smell something fishy. Elementary my dear Watson. By the way that trout was D-licious.
So what do I think about that? Globalisation! In your face. (I am still wondering though, if it is really cheaper to send all the way to south of Africa some Chinese cashiers than to higher an autochthon, bearing in mind that Lesotho is a poor country. And if not then what is their motivation?)