The last Moon

In 2017, thanks to funding from the Institut Français, Karen Paulina Biswell undertook a residency in the Amerindian commune of Awala-Yalimapo in French Guiana, working with the Kali’na population.Alternating between portraits of women from the community and fragments of natural elements, Karen Paulina Biswell ought to establish connections between the plant world and the female figure in the cycles of life transmission.This project is also the result of a reflection on the artist’s positioning and perspective.

During her third journey to French Guiana in 2019, the artist was confronted with the isolation and rejection of he camera by members of the community, a situation that called into question the relevance of an exchange with them. «I needed to eliminate this hierarchy of gaze and speech to cultivate an interiority where revelations operate through desire, instinct, ignorance. I had to abandon the method of interpretation, the need to verify something through a judgment of attribution, and move towards experience. I wanted to treat every event as a flow from them to me, rooted in my desire for this community, their beliefs, and their struggles as I perceived them. It was no longer about understanding or intellectual agreements but about intensities, resonances, and emotional connections.»