The Sand and Stars of Timbuktu

The Sand and Stars of Timbuktu

Maxime Banks

G3 Artspace
Parkdale, Victoria  Australia

Opening: Friday 17^th January 2014, 6-8pm
Exhibition: Saturday 18^th January – Wednesday 12^th February 2014

An artist’s poetic navigation through a narrative of place and identity, language and knowledge inspires this multidisciplinary exhibition by Maxime Banks. Her migration story to Australia creates a heightened anxiety of displacement and otherness which informs her work and in this arts installation of visual art, performance, sound and video.

Maxime explores her history as an African American artist living and working in Parkdale and uses the drama of ancient African astronomers as she aligns her history with their history of migration and fragmentation. Her exhibition is a sensory experience encompassing original poetic text written in French, English and Arabic and the rich language of imagery on paper, canvas and textile stirring up the sands of spirituality
and the dust of memory.

The opening night will premiere the short film Banks has created specifically for the exhibition as well as spoken word performance and sound projection. Maxime’s storytelling through art captures her audience and transports them on her journey.

somewhere between blood and rust

seething shores descending
sons stagger unhinged and flay
keep safe between bridges
diving to conquer a thing found
dislodged still.

dredges tension sticking
pressure columns palpitate
beating to a future
scars encrust.

the history of rust aching
silent daughters disembowel
a sieve filtering language and bones.

....some glad morning when this life is over, i'll fly away...

suckle unto a solace falling
unmangle and let stay
tincture tastes a stench remembered
among massacred dancing toes
stabbing kisses that damage and hang
spewing severed perception and flesh.

...i'll fly away, oh glory, i'll fly away...

--21 oct 2009