ANCESTRY, POSTERITY, MANHOOD, BROTHERHOOD.

Ancestry, Posterity, Manhood, Brotherhood. was created when Pol Pauwels from 2m3 asked me to do a performance in his space. I came up with the concept quite quickly. A screen was placed in the space, dividing the audience from my brother - Kamal Tall - and I. We were placed behind the screen with a spotlight casting a silhouette of our stature and movements on it. On the front of this screen (the side of the audience) there was a live video feed from a camera filming our actions projected. My brother and I were braiding each other's hair; one of us sitting down, the other standing up, performing the act of tressage. In the middle of the performance, my brother and I would switch places, taking up the other's previous position. The camera, live feeding a moving image to the projector, would be zoomed in on our hands, arms, faces, etc attempting to create a deep focus on this act, projecting this over our silhouette. 


Braiding, létt,invlechten, tressage, has been part of African culture for centuries, displaying tribal, family and status symbols through its patterns and shapes. Largely seen as a feminine act (to this day) it opens a space that creates bonds between themselves, their children, partners, friends and potential financial income. For my brother and I this tradition felt quite distant. Our mother, of Belgian/Dutch background, never braided our hair, nor did anyone else. So performing this act on each other felt as a way of finding not only a connection between ourselves, but also to this ancestral tradition we never really connected with. Besides that, the intimacy connected to tressage became a strengthening of our brotherhood, while also opening questions about our place as men and manliness in general.