Clément Cogitore Ferdinandea, l’île éphémère

Clément Cogitore - Ferdinandea, l’île éphémère. Open house on Wednesday, December 10 at 4 p.m. Between late June and mid-July 1831, underwater volcanic activity gave rise to a new island in the Mediterranean, in the Strait of Sicily opposite Tunisia. While sailors and residents of the neighboring coasts feared the awakening of a sea monster, the new territory aroused the curiosity of scientists and the desire of expanding European powers at the height of their colonial expansion. Within a few weeks, the island was claimed for its strategic position by Great Britain, France and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, among others. However, the competition was short-lived: barely six months after its appearance, the newly formed island sank beneath the waves of the Mediterranean. Its multiple names nevertheless remain recorded in European archives: “Ferdinandea” for the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, in honor of King Ferdinand II of Bourbon; “Julia” for the French, referring to the July Monarchy; and “Graham” for the English, after Sir James Graham, First Lord of the Admiralty. Now lying a few meters below the surface, the basalt rock is closely monitored by seismologists; could a new eruption cause it to re-emerge at any moment and once again give rise to the geopolitical maneuvers, exploitative and exclusionary practices of imperialist powers? Through the films, videos and photographs created for the exhibition, artist and philosopher Clément Cogitore speculates on the volcano’s emergence, disappearance and possible re-emergence. Between documentary and fiction, his metaphorical intuition orchestrates premonitions, popular beliefs, archival documents, scientific and cartographic surveys: in his hands, “Ferdinandea” becomes a mirror of different relationships with the world and possible futures. According to Cogitore’s multifaceted narrative, “Ferdinandea” constitutes an immersed utopia/dystopia, a place of infinite possibilities from which the artist invites us to rethink the space of the “middle sea.” Curators: Kathryn Weir, art historian and exhibition curator Hélia Paukner, heritage curator, head of the Contemporary Art department, Mucem Enguerrand Lascols, heritage curator, Domestic Life department, Mucem First shown at MADRE (the Donnaregina Museum of Contemporary Art in Naples, from June 24 to September 12, 2022), the Marseille version of the exhibition will benefit from the loan of new archives, a new scenographic design and an expanded exhibition catalog. Among the approximately fifty works and archival items exhibited at Mucem (16 mm film, videos, photographs, graphic arts, archival documents and paintings), six works by Clément Cogitore will be presented, five of which have never been shown in France, with loans from private and public collections in France and abroad. Open house on Wednesday, December 10 at 4 p.m.