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| Bien-Soleil Canoë |
Tamed snakes and muted bones[1] are just a couple of images Bien-Soleil Canoë lifted from Aimé Césaire. Known for the breadth of his literary allusions, Canoë’s work is a fractured bibliography of the finest in francophone literature. As a student at the Université des Antilles, he was heavily influenced by the surrealist poet Martin Binot, the charismatic professor who served between 1982 and 1994 as the department chair of Semiology and Linguistics.
Also among Canoë influences was the nautical photographer Daphna Metlos, a true visionary in the field of activist ecological documentation.
While some claim that Canoë has yet to emerge from his apprenticeship, others see great insight and originality in his admittedly narrow scope of work. When the five-hour documentary video Les Serpents Apprivoisés was screened at the Venice Biennale in 2012, while most attendees walked out, the few who remained described the piece as transformative and operatic.
