MEDUSA – Fusing Contemporary Art & Science

In collaboration with Thierry Perez CNRS scientist,  David Gruber marine biologist, NOAA, Yadira Ramirez American Indian and Mexican feature, Jorge Bachmann sound designer, Elise Rigot designer, Martin Giraud timelapse, Damien Golbin drone images and Stéphanie Araud film editor.

 

This project combines a dialogue from a Native American woman and an ancestral voice from a Mediterranean legend to reinterpret the Greek myth of Gorgone Medusa who created Coral in the sea. With coral images are from Marseille (France) and Coral reef from Solomon Islands (Oceania). This new narrative demonstrates the social-ecological power of living things as coral and women. « This legend was used to explain how coral in the sea was made. Perseus, after decapitating Medusa’s head, washed his hands, and to safeguard the head, it was laid down on some seaweed on the rocky shore of the Sea. The gorgon’s blood was spilled on to the seaweeds, and the mysterious power of the head metamorphosed the affected seaweeds into hard coral. » (Journal of Applied Phycology – 2020).

This film installation explores a new narrative of the metamorphosis of human into nonhuman, a return to the sea through the power of seaweed. Metaphorically this marine myth creates connection between the witch/healer, a rejected woman who recreates life despite her persecution. This version reexamines the history from the perspective of living things, women also open a conversation on the oppression of Indegenous and their relationship to the natural world. A momentum to create an « aware responsibility » of all forms of life and their interdependence. According to Mireille Delmas-Marty, Anticipation means becoming aware of the fact that the world community does not yet exist but in the process of becoming. We cannot build on the past because there is no common history between the peoples of the earth. On the other hand, there is a common future, a common destiny. « It is not that I would like to make « civilisation » any better, but I would like to see arrogant technology bow before the wonderful and magical powers of life and the universe. » Darryl Babe Wilson, Native American author and storyteller.

Yadira Ramirez is a 26 year old queer, educator who comes from a line of second generation Mexican-Americans and Mescalero Apache people. Yadira was born in a small farm town that is known to carry migration stories of Indigenous people from Mexico and grew up in Salinas, CA where her identity was cultivated and molded into the person she is today. Growing up in Salinas allowed Yadira to be immersed in Chicano culture with an intertribal influence that came from various Indigenous backgrounds. Yadira Ramirez