Ink on bone and resin coins, wooden box
Bady Dalloul's work
is influenced by his personal history and the notions of territory, border, and
travel. Les voyageurs [The travelers] combines
an old game box symbolizing chance, bets, and risk-taking, and coins that are
snippets of the history of the Syrian, Palestinian, and Lebanese young men who,
at the beginning of the 20th century, left their countries to flee poverty and
conscription in the Ottoman Empire. They found
themselves tricked while in transit in the French port of Marseilles. Aiming to
migrate to Brazil and North America, the French colonial authorities send them
to West Africa instead. With this poetic and political evocation of an often
glossed-over episode of French history, the artist also draws a parallel
between this and the similar odyssey of the young men currently leaving Africa
for better opportunities in Europe...
