For its last exhibition of the year, the Atelier Archipels gallery located in the town of Tonnerre in France has decided to show the works by Guadeloupean painter Agnès Djafri from October 7 to December 16, 2023. The exhibition is called “Bigidi Pa Tonbé”.
On the Atelier Archipels Facebook page, Agnès Djafri says: “In Creole, we often say that a mess makes order. So bigidi is an imbalance. It’s not a fall. It is that compound of resistance, acceptance and resilience that enables us to Be with all the vagaries of life. Bigidi, magnificently conceptualized by choreographer and anthropologist Lénablou, is considered in my colors and my words, as a journey made up of dance steps of an imaginary being who is a little crazy, a little alone,very joyful. This solo exhibition, my first in France, is a beautiful step in my artistic transhumance. Thank you Burgundy, thank you Tonnerre!”
We add that when Guadeloupean dancer Léna Blou started using the word “bigidi”, some people thought she had invented it. In reality, many lovers of the Creole language had been using it for a very long time, or had heard their parents or other elders use it often about a drunk person, staggering because of rum, but never falling… Moreover, in the early 80’s, an English teacher at the Gerville-Réache high school had given clarification about the origin of “bigidi”. It comes from English “to be giddy”, which means “to feel dizzy”, “to feel a little light-headed”, and is just one example of the contribution of the English language to our mixed Creole, born during colonization…
On her Facebook page, Agnès Djafri specifies that “this is an exhibition that also speaks about encounters with invisible people that have touched me. I had to make a foray into history to understand, and I found similarities with our own in Guadeloupe. The world is big, but we are small. Fortunately, we can still draw from within ourselves the secular forces that allow a permanent bigidi that makes life dance (…)”.
If you want to see Agnès Djafri’s paintings (in which her favorite color, blue, predominates) and read her poems, take a detour to the town of Tonnerre, located less than 2 hours from Paris in the Burgundy-Franche-Comté region.
Good news: the “Bigidi Pa Tonbé” exhibition has been extended, and will be open until the end of December.
Photos: Archipels
