Healing Trousseau
2021, painting: medicine colours, series of twenty-four, cm 5 x 5; installation: three time-tables, wood, 80 x 130 x 90 h cm
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the then-president of Ghana made periodic speeches to the nation, each time wearing a shirt with the same design but made from different wax fabrics, with which a meaning is associated. Assuming it was part of the communication codes, and emphasising the iatrogenesis of the protocols adopted during the health emergency, details of the fabrics painted with colours extracted from medicines were presented on a timetable arranged respecting the temporal distance between speeches. The recesses in the tables invite visitors to enjoy the work not only with their eyes but also with their bodies. Additionally, visitors are asked to provide information on the names of the textiles.
Exhibition
A Place Where only Salt is Lacking, 2022, Prempeh II Library, KNUST, Kumasi (Ghana), curated by Zoe KɔKɔɔ
Description
During the Covid-19 health emergency, the then-president of Ghana Nana Akufo Addo has addressed the nation periodically, wearing a shirt with the same design but different wax fabric each time. Fabrics that are part of Ghana’s tradition and have specific names and meanings.
In a reflection on the state of exception that has guided the government of countries during the pandemic and the controversial relationship between public safety and the limitation of personal freedoms, Rebecca De Marchi condensed the ambiguous relationship between bio-politics and multinational drug companies, reproducing the pattern of fabrics in small-format paintings made using colours drawn from medicines.
A reflection that takes up the considerations elaborated by Giorgio Agamben on ‘bare life’ and by Ivan Illich since the 1970s on the various forms of iatrogenesis, the systemic ‘ritualization of the crisis’, and the dehumanising pervasiveness of statistics.
Researching through various sources and engaging in direct or remote dialogue with Ghanaians, De Marchi is reconstructing the names and meanings of the fabrics to grasp the nuances of the messages whose contents are not conveyed solely through the verbal canon.
Image Credits
Category
- Installation, Painting
