Ka kualmaku

process, performative action, various element (video, sound, typeface, book...), 2018-2023

Ka kualmaku is a project carried out during a several-month stay in Colombia: the artist’s attempt to learn a language classified as “endangered,” Namtrik.

This journey took as its starting point the reversal of historical cultural and economic flows in order to grasp the risks of the disappearance of the world’s intangible heritage. Throughout this process, carried out with the Misak community, forms emerged that focused on the act of learning itself while revealing the impossible completion of the project: lecture notes, sound recordings, printed characters... but also a performance that in turn transformed the artist into a language teacher.

In 2023, a book co-published by Théophile’s Papers and Florence Loewy brought together all the knowledge gathered during the stay. Imitating the aesthetics of a language book, this publication is a veritable grammar, albeit a very partial one, between Namtrik and French.


Full presentation pdf : pictures + texts (french)