Zott Konn – Yeman (They know – the wise)

Commissioned by the International Curators Forum for the 59th Venice Biennial, 2022

Zot Konn – Yeman, Single channel HD video (extract), 2022

For ICF’s Venice iteration of our trans-national Diaspora Pavilion 2 project, Shiraz Bayjoo has developed a new performance and installation in collaboration with Nicolas Faubert and Siyabonga Mthembu. This new commission, conceived by Bayjoo, features moving image, sculptural installation, choreographed movement enacted by Faubert and vocal performances by Mthembu.

The title of the commission, Zot Konn – Yeman, brings together Mauritian Creole and the Bantu language Fang, merging the two African languages spoken by Bayjoo and Faubert’s ancestors. Translated as ‘they know – the wise’ the title refers to a collective questioning of existing systems of knowledge and a pursuit of future silos for ancestral knowledges. The work juxtaposes sites of origin and extraction, methodologies of preservation and domination, and the global interconnection and fragmentation rendered by colonialism.

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Installation view Kunsthal Charlottenborg, 2023

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