The series L’or c’est le Diable (extracted from L’odeur de l’or et du sang) by Alain Licari is exhibited at the Galerie La Grande Vitrine (Arles) as part of the Waste Africa exhibition.
It stands alongside the work of photographers Keke and Fanta Diarra to present the collective and civic exhibition « Waste » Africa or virtuous valuation.
“We come from the four corners of Guinea, Mali, Burkina; from Senegal too. There are thousands of us in the mine bending our backs, scraping clay and breaking stone in search of a better life.”
For these families, gold panning is the only means of subsistence. They pay dearly – often with the price of their lives – for a dream of fortune that will probably never happen. But the cost is also ecological.
“Before, there was the forest. But we ripped it all out to look for gold.”
The environmental disaster is there, before our eyes and it is not about to stop. The gold extracted – the blood spilled, the contaminated soil, the uprooted trees – is also used to operate our mobile phones, our flat screens, our computers…
Forest and Man don’t have a bright future ahead of them.
Alain Licari
Alain Licari : L’or c’est le Diable
from April 28 to June 30, 2023
Galerie La Grande Vitrine
12 rue Jouvence
Arles
https://www.lagrandevitrine.art/
