Venance Jean Luc Raharimanana
Visited the IAS from October to November 2024
Writing, drawing, playing music, a month's residency at the IAS, University of Bayreuth.
A residency to take a step back and lay the foundations for a research project combining writing, painting and music. I painted a lot, played the Marovany a lot and wrote a bit.
I locked myself away a lot to paint, took the time to walk around Bayreuth, to breathe - breathing as an essential act in painting, where I work on the fluidity of air in the blood, and the rhythm of nature to root gestures and movements.
Painting: I've been working on four basic works, untitled for the moment, because when you come from a part of the world - Madagascar - where yesterday was just a trial and the night as the twin of death assails you, you know that the best thing is to forget. But the violence of the world keeps you on your toes, sleeplessness after sleeplessness, gaze after gaze. So, when words fail you, you pick up a pencil, a felt-tip pen, a camera, you paint, you stare, the better to blur everything, and call on the panic of the brain to be able to see everything. A residence where the images of the world come knocking on the door. Bayreuth so calm, Bayreuth so peaceful.
The aim is to have an exhibition/installation/performance in 2025 or 2026.
Cinema: alongside this work on painting and images, on 14 October 2024 I was able to talk to the public at the screening of my film ‘Zaho zay’, co-written with and directed by Maeva Ranaivojaona. This meeting with Maeva enabled me to lay the foundations for a new film project, a short film that I will probably direct. It's only the beginning of the project, but the synopsis was written during the residency. All that remains now is to take the time to develop the project.
Music and writing: the two disciplines are inseparable for me. I've been playing music, creating pieces, and my aim for 2025/2026 is to come up with a seven-track album, with the collaboration of artists like Tao Ravao (creator of Madagascan blues), Dina Mialinelina (Madagascan singer and composer), Justin Vali (valiha composer, Madagascar), Yann Clery (flutist-composer, Guyana) and Jean-Christophe Feldhandler (opera composer, France).
Why music and writing? And my origins? And my lands. My waters. My air. From my fires. I come from an oral tradition where everything is approached with the breath, aina, of life. The aina, in Malagasy philosophy and spirituality, is a fine energy, in the form of a fine, invisible thread, which circulates in the being and in the body, and to which we must pay attention. It needs to be unfurled, unravelled, supple and gentle, otherwise it becomes rigid and breaks, and we fall ill and die. You unfold it in the waves and rhythm of music, you unfold it in the flight and depth of words and text.
I wrote poems and a few short stories, as a basis for future short stories, took notes, caught inspirations, but the residency was clearly geared towards painting and music. I continued to write a long text on rhythm, a difficult subject that has haunted me for years, where I had a lot of exchanges with Prof. Ute Fendler.
I've welcomed students to discuss multidisciplinarity, and I've welcomed researchers such as Prof. Samuel Kayode, where we've talked about musicology and my practice of the Marovany musical instrument, between tradition and modernity, a highly interesting discussion because it made me realise how close I am to other string instrument practices in Ghana and Benin. I continue to correspond with Professor Samuel Kayode to this day.
