Abdessamad El Montassir
Research project
Natural Resistance
Project summary
How do traumatic events emerge in the bodies of descendants? Is a plant an indicator of the political power relations in a given territory? Résistance Naturelle is an interdisciplinary art and research project whose process aims to track the traumas generated in the context of a non-event* in the Sahara in southern Morocco, and the forms of amnesia, shame and guilt generated by this situation in this territory. The project focuses on the impossibility of reconstructing political events and facts. In this dynamic, it focuses on the complexity of releasing a dominated word, and questions the upheavals that have profoundly affected our contemporary societies. Upheavals that feed on amnesia. In this dynamic, Naturelles Resistance probes the possible visceral transmissions that take place and emerge in the bodies of subsequent generations. These transmissions are not based on lived experience, but constitute and legitimize a memory. This project takes shape through several temporalities, both distinct and complementary, whose language eludes us:
– The temporality of the plant, which takes shape from ddaghmous, a euphorbia endogenous to the Sahara in southern Morocco. This plant, initially composed of leaves, has developed resistance systems and is now covered in spines. In my view, it is a highly symbolic and reliable indicator of the political and cultural balance of power in this territory, where the political situation is extreme. By following the systems of resistance developed by this plant, Résistance Naturelle evokes the forms of emancipation produced by citizens in this same territory, whose political situation is complex.
– The temporality of fictional representations and imaginary project spaces developed by the inhabitants of this region to transcend recognized objectivity. This temporality runs through utopias that escape official history, and feeds on the myth ofChertate, an important mythological character in Saharan narratives. Half-human, half-mythical animal, Chertate walks continually with the aim of freeing himself, and as he walks, he creates fictional narratives in which he comes to believe. By exploiting the potential of these different temporalities, Résistance Naturelle aims to give substance and open up a space for expression to silences. It is part of an interdisciplinary approach in which plant, myth and archive become the medium for the emergence of numerous collective narratives.
Through interviews with scientists and citizen-witnesses, as well as research into Saharan myths and poetry, the project explores signs seemingly devoid of value or meaning in the eyes of history’s “Great Events”. It’s not just a question of fighting against erasure or disappearance, but of opening up an unprecedented interstice for the emergence of these latent testimonies and amnesiac memories, while asserting a situated, contextualized word rooted in experience.
By summoning facts belonging to silent and amnesiac history, present or past, this project opens up new spaces for numerous narratives where speech is freed to dig, produce, transmit, reconnect, document, preserve, analyze and share. In this way, Résistance Naturelled deploys a process that provides the necessary ingredients for the production of a counter-phrase.
Résistance Naturelle is an art and research project produced by Iméra and co-produced with the Institut Français du Maroc, Le Cube – independent art room and Moussem Nomadic Art Center.
Research structures :
– Iméra – Institut d’études avancées, Exploratoire Méditerranéen de l’Interdisciplinarité, Aix- Marseille Université.
– IMBE – Mediterranean Institute of Biodiversity and Marine and Continental Ecology.
