Virgin Forest

wooden structure, drawings, watercolors, photographs, collages,
packaging cardboard; total dimensions: 8,000 x 1,500 cm

“I usually transform the exhibition space where I present my work. People enter ‘Virgin Forest,’ where they discover my work. The room is transformed into a huge ship—a metaphor that takes visitors into my world. I strive to create atmospheres, emotions, powerful sensations, and small reflections on our contemporary society.” I covered the floor with cardboard boxes from various sources. They vividly illustrate the relationship between the North and the South, which oscillates between the import of goods and the export of people. This can be seen in old Europe. My work and I share the same fate as these products forced into exile.” *

Various earlier works are scattered across this boat-shaped structure currently under construction. The watercolor series *Baptism* recounts a personal anecdote: Bathélémy Toguo’s family, worried that he was not surrounded by women and children, advised him to consult a healer. “Baptism” plunges us into a hallucinatory world permeated by the artist’s own madness. Alongside it, collages, photographs, and drawings trace a journey through performances (‘Transits’), faces encountered in various places (“Ciudad de Oviedo”), reflections on the North/South divide, and the theme of exile.

Barthélémy Toguo’s work is based on the accumulation and proliferation of symbols designed to challenge and question clichés and the divisions between the “Western” and “non-Western” worlds (since, in this context, the distinction is made by exclusion). In his work, it is quite significant to observe that two aesthetic approaches coexist and clash, reflecting his personal journey and sense of uprootedness. Through a blend of photographic portraits and drawings or more raw sculptures created using materials specific to a particular tradition or geography, the boat emerges as a possible response to the paradoxes generated by im(e)migration.

Alexandra Gillet