Volcanoes; the intense emitters of energy; the changers of landscapes; the wonders of the earth; our very own natural artists. A young one of these in fact exists in France, within the Puy de Dôme region, and is somewhere where our interviewed artist this month, Sandrine, grew up. A brilliant figurative sculptor, Sandrine is someone who looks to portray one of humanities greatest tragedies in it's rawest form - slavery, namely that of the Atlantic Slave Trade. Much like a Volcano that exists under the grounds upon which she was raised, Sandrine is an explosive artist who does not shy away from her strong beliefs when it comes to bringing the controversial issues of slavery to the forefront.
Suffering from severe Asthma when she was a child, Sandrine felt that there was little way in which to express herself in the way that most children energetically do. Then one day, on her eighth birthday, she received a gift - a pack of clay. Yet it was not the material which she received that set her upon the course of her true artistic journey but what she then began to create using it. Searching her familiar surroundings, Sandrine decided to copy an African sculpture that belonged to her grandmother. But for the young Sandrine, the most prominent question was not what to create next, but what it was that she had just created: why was that sculpture there in the first place?
'It is sweet here now', one Jamaican man once said, referring to the history of the Caribbean, 'but one time it was never sweet'. Such a statement, however, can also be applied to the histories of those islands which lie off the coast of East Africa. For within the Indian Ocean, 400 miles East of Madagascar, sits the tropical island of Réunion. Its climate makes it an incredibly fertile place to grow the likes of coffee and sugar, goods which the Europeans, who first colonised the island in the 1600's, craved just as much then as they do now. Resultantly by the late 18th Century, coinciding with the growth of the transatlantic slave trade, ruthless merchants, primarily from the French East India Company, were importing slaves to work on plantations on the isle in their thousands.
Stolen from their homes, often betrayed by neighbouring tribes who were being paid by cunning European merchants, it is estimated that between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, 15 Million Africans were forcibly transported from West Africa to work as slaves, perhaps 2.5 million of whom died in the Atlantic crossing alone [U.N Estimates]. One key destination, though not as significant as the likes of the Americas, was Madagascar, which is in fact where this story begins. In horrendous conditions, often shackled together like sardines for weeks at a time as the slave ships made their way through the rough seas around the cape of Southern Africa, hundreds of thousands of people were taken to this large island to be sold as slaves. Some of these slaves, however, were then also shipped to Réunion Island, where they were put to work on the growing plantations there. Though their conditions were to be just as dire as they were on board the ships which brought them. With no hope of seeing their families or homelands again, stripped of their possessions and their names, these people now found themselves having to work under the scorching sun all day every day. Until, one day someone decided that enough was enough.
Anchaing was a young man who lived on the Isle of Réunion. Having been brought to the Isle as a child, his memories of home and his family in Africa remained strong, but his hope of returning to them had been shattered thanks to years of torture and forced work by his white masters. Then one day, a young slave girl called Héva was brought to the plantation and almost instantly the pair fell in love. Anchaing however, was determined not to see Héva be treated as he had been all his life. So, on one dark night as the guards rested, they decided to run away. With dogs and men barking behind them as they sprinted through the dense forests and hills, clambering barefoot over branches and weeds as they went, they ran and ran until suddenly they reached the peak of a steep mountain. There they would stay for years, hunting, fishing and eventually raising a family. What is more is that these were the first run-away slaves to inhabit and establish an encampment in an area which is today known as Salazie. But it was not to last. Years later whilst out foraging, Anchaing was killed by a vicious bounty hunter who had been hired by the plantation to hunt him down and whilst Héva did survive, both herself and the children were taken back to the plantation.
Although the peak that Anchaing and Héva escaped to is a real place, and is in fact named after them, 'Piton d'Anchaing', the many stories regarding them are shrouded in myth and legend. For it is not known whether they established an encampment nor is there any written evidence out there to even confirm of their existence. Yet this folkloric tale holds significance, because, regardless of who founded it, Salazie really did end up becoming a commune where many runaway slaves set up new lives and where many more subsequently found a safe passage through which to escape the plantations. To this day, eight thousand people still live in Salazie, many of whom are the ancestors of runaway slaves, yet thousands more of their descendants live around the globe, mainly in France - and Sandrine is one of them.
At home, Sandrine is often referred to as a 'Zoréole', a Réunion Creole ( a French-based Creole language that was formed and is still spoken on Réunion Island) term, that mixes the official Réunionese classifications, Zoreilles and Créole, for someone who has mixed heritage. The reasoning for this stems from the fact that Sandrine's mother is from mainland France, known in Réunion Creole as a Zoreilles, and her father was born on Réunion Island, referred to in Réunion Creole as being a Créole, hence the mixing of the two terms to create the colloquial "Zoréole'. In fact, Sandrine's father was raised in Salazie and was himself the descendant of runaway slaves. As Sandrine grew older and began to read about the history of the Island, she became increasingly curious to find out more about her own family's link to the slave trade. Yet this was where she hit a wall.
'No one talked about it [her family's connection to slavery]',Sandrine tells me, Perhaps out of shame as this is a painful subject, but also because they were a very large family, my father was one of 12 children who worked the land in Salazie, cultivating bananas, and that life was hard.' Yet this onIy drove Sandrine to pursue the subject further. Many Years later after studying art, an apprenticeship with a great realist sculptor,I told myself that if no one wanted to talk about that part of the story, then I would dedicate myself to doing so, Sandrine says passionately. From the beginning I knew that I would not represent "the beautiful", like those incredible works of art that we love so much. I knew that I had strong things to say, as if I carried an inner anger of the injustices of the past'. How did the 8-year-old Sandrine however, who had just attempted to sculpt her grandmother's ornament with clay, become someone who was able to convey such poignant themes so expertly through art?
After attempting to craft her first piece at 8 years old, Sandrine decided to try her hand at painting but for her it never quite had the depth that sculpting has, and for the next 10 years she would continually look to refine her sculpting skills all on her own. Then, once she turned 18, Sandrine went to college to first study Art History before then embarking upon a two year sculpture apprenticeship. Though, despite trying out different materials to sculpt using, Sandrine remained obsessed with clay - just as she does now, forty years later. Using few tools, Sandrine uses primarily a knife to carve out her realistic works, starting with the bony and muscular structure before then etching out the details, such as the veins and bodily expressions. Interestingly, in-line with her most prominent theme, many of her pieces, the majority of which represent slaves, are also purposely hollowed out - 'they could steal their body... but not their soul'.
'I had strong things to say', Sandrine remarks, looking back at her immediate post-apprenticeship years, 'it was as if I carried an inner anger of the injustices of the past', passions which were soon to be reflected through her sculpture work. 'I first sculpted an elderly woman, as for me the elders are very important, for they have a great deal of knowledge and history to share with us'. Her spiritual feelings regarding slavery were in fact so strong that Sandrine chose to bury some of the initial sculptures she designed: 'I wanted to honour my ancestors, I buried the first sculptures so that they could return to their place'. A sentiment which rings ever more resoundingly when we realised how many millions of slaves were buried hundreds, if not thousands of miles, from the lands which they felt to closely connected to. Yet, as Sandrine came to realise, what is buried cannot be heard.
I wanted to show them [her sculptures],so that the younger generations could know their history and they wouldn't forget',Sandrine states, reflecting upon her decision to no longer bury her works. 'What is important to me is that my creations are in places of memory, such as in plantations, museums and memorial festivals... and each time one finds its place, it is as if I have found an acupressure point in the earth, liberating the souls of my ancestors'. Her sculptures for example, have appeared in numerous places over the course of her long artistic career, spanning from the Legacy Museum in Alabama ('Exodus') and the Port of Bordeaux ('Strange Fruit') to the Slave House on the Senegalese Island of Gorée and the Slave Savannah cultural site on the Caribbean Island of Martinique. What is more is that these pieces are placed on significant points of the Triangular Slave Trade. European goods for instance, like oils and wines, were shipped from the Port of Bordeaux to slave trading centres in Africa, such as the Island of Gorée, where the commodities would be exchanged for people who had been kidnapped from their homes. These people were then taken to the Americas to work as slaves on plantations, such as in cotton fields of Alabama or on the sugar cane fields of the Caribbean Islands. To Sandrine however, it is not where her sculptures are placed which is significant, but how the humans they represent are expressed.
'My sculptures are divided into several themes.' Themes that primarily reflect 'separations, sales, lynchings, plantations, the seabed, the abolition of slavery and freemen'. In a fascinating twist, Sandrine plans her work soley in accordance with her dreams. 'I have no models, no photos. I work only with my dreams... I started a long time ago to dream about these humiliated characters, reduced to almost nothing, having lost everything, their land, their family, their identity. So, I learned a method to remember my dreams. When I fall asleep, I conditioned my mind to zoom in on the dream as if I were taking a photograph. And after a while, I will have developed several stories of many characters and when I feel ready, I take the clay and work. I never draw, I sculpt directly often in a frantic way.' Such a way of working furthermore solidifies Sandrine's belief that the voices and struggles of her ancestors echo through her - suffering that she is keen to accurately portray in her work.
Over the course of four hundred years, slave traffickers, who were responsible for the transporting slaves across vast Oceans, African bush-lands and Tropical Jungles, developed many evil designs with which to hoard these stolen people together and maintain their discipline. One simple devise was the linked chain, which enabled traffickers to keep slaves in dense columns, yet other, more sinister, creations were also used. One of these can be seen in Sandrine's work, the Iron Mask, which covered the lower half of the wearers face. Within this device was also a metal plate which held down the tongue as to stop them from both speaking and eating. Horrifically this mask was often equipped with a neck brace which was attached with long hooks, preventing the slave from lying down with their fellow captives. So, as well as presenting the pain in these people's faces as they were marched across large open plains and torn away from their families at auction, Sandrine also uses historically authentic chains for use on her sculptures. 'I try to be fair to reality... the chains are real chains, which were often used for cattle, something the black man was more or less considered as being... atrocities that must be seen in their raw state'. As Sandrine acknowledges, such things are indeed hard to read about, yet her reasoning behind bringing such horrendous historic acts back into the limelight is because she believes it to be a mans by which to deal with a very modern problem.
It is estimated that up to 50 million people today are trapped in slavery, whether it be through forced labour, child marriage, debt bondage or domestic servitude. Such figures are startling to hear, particularly when many of us confine such a horrendous phenomenon to history, yet, as Sandrine hopes to demonstrate, such an issue is all too prevalent in our 21st Century world. 'History is like a circle of chains' says Sandrine, 'and I would very much like it if all the chains of restraint are transformed into human solidarity. Her raw and realistic works remind us that slaves were not just painted figures and statistics from the past but real people, ones who suffered just as those of today do- which surely demands that something must be done about it. Yet emotion, mainly that of torment, is not the only thing that is conveyed through Sandrine's work.
Throughout the long period of the transatlantic slave trade, Africa not only saw many of its people stolen but many of its different cultures dissolve as a result. Sandrine hopes to preserve many of these lost cultures through her sculptures. Be they ceremonial headdresses, scars, clothes or jewellery, Sandrine pays homage not only to the homeland of transatlantic slaves, but the ancestral lands of humanity.
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