5 Works to Get to Know Christelle Oyiri—Tate’s New Infinities Commission

1. Collective Amnesia: In Memory of Logobi (2018–2022)

Collective Amnesia: In Memory of Logobi is a 15-minute film highlighting Logobi’s history, which many of us are unfamiliar with. Logobi is an Ivorian folk dance that emerged from the streets of Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Later, in the late 2000s through the early 2010s, it gained popularity in the suburbs of Paris among Black French youth.

The music Logobi dancers move to is a mix of hard electro-house music and coupé-décalé, an Ivorian-French musical genre that emerged when the Ivorian political crisis began in 2002. The body language of bluffing and mimicking influenced its movement. The spontaneous and casual nature of Logobi usually leads dancers to public spaces rather than inside clubs.

The artist wove together found footage, 3D animation, and staged dance videos directed by Oyiri herself. Her short clips feature a fictional protagonist who has amnesia and tries to regain her memories through art and music along with a budding friendship with another immigrant person around the same age. This short video epitomizes Oyiri’s art practice, inviting viewers to engage with the music to understand the story.

2. Family Fresco 2002 (2022)

Family Fresco 2002 is a three-meter folding screen that shows manipulated images of Oyiri’s family. Many of the people featured seem to emit red beams from their eyes and some of the faces seem to have been wiped off the photograph. The unsettling eyes could be an artist’s way of judging the painful truth or forcing us to face the history that separated families and caused pain to civilians. In 2002, a failed coup d’état by a rebel army from the North occurred leading to a long civil war. It was also the last year the artist resided in the country before she returned many years later as an adult.

The space that the partition takes up and separates gives a dynamic to how visitors experience the sculpture. It suggests the divided country, family separation, and severed lives due to the conflict. The moment the viewers realize there are photographs of the artist’s family used on the sculpture pulls us back to the reality that Ivorians still live through after years of trauma.

3. Vindicta (2022)

Visitors may catch a glimpse of themselves when they walk by these sculptures. Vindicta consists of multiple images of masks etched onto everyday mirrors. The masks are of the Kru ethnic group from Ivory Coast and Liberia, which were stolen during colonization and later ended up in many Western museums and galleries without permission. This artwork is a subtle commentary on how colonialism has lingering impacts on native people.

The mirror sculptures are lit from the back creating a striking floating image. Oyiri seems to have used most people’s automatic reactions when encountered with a mirror—checking oneself out. When visitors are faced with the mask-engraved mirror, they see the eyes of the masks staring right back into their eyes asking questions—where one stands on the subject of repatriation in the art world.

4. Faster Than This is Suicide (2023)

Faster Than This Is Suicide was a performance that took place on October 6, 2023, at Serpentine Galleries in London, UK. Christelle Oyiri performed under her pseudonym CRYSTALLMESS that night with three other artists—COVCO (piano/vocal), OXHY (sequencing/programming), and NANDITA (guitar/vocal)—and it was curated by Claude Adjil with scenography designed by Hannah Rose Stewart.

This one-hour-long performance is, as her website writes, “a sonic poem, an ode to an impossible path to slowness and reflection, a remedy against mortuary accelerationism that only leaves us drained with the ephemerality of networks.” A series of varying tempo music and the presence and absence of Oyiri’s narration guide the audience to be in almost a sonic trance. The artists playing in a circle while facing each other in the round indoor space create a ritual-like atmosphere and a sense of connection younger generations secretly yearn for in this digital age. The full-length performance can be watched below.

5. VENOM VOYAGE (2023)

The installation VENOM VOYAGE, in the exhibition of the same title, resembled a travel agency. We often associate a travel agency with a nice, relaxing vacation, but its bright neon green color used in the show makes viewers question the familiar positive connotation. The fluorescent green, usually linked to a toxic chemical or contamination passes the viewer’s mind.

In this installation, Christelle Oyiri puts a spotlight on the reality of once-vacation destinations Guadeloupe and Martinique. A pesticide called chlordecone was used in banana plantations on both islands from 1972 to 1993 long after the banning of the chemical in the US and Europe in the 1970s, which resulted in long-lasting health problems for the residents. The stark difference between the two images linked to the islands “explores themes of colonial alienation and alternative temporalities”, as the gta exhibitions website states, which are the themes the artist employs in her practice.

The possibility for Christelle Oyiri seems to have no boundaries. The counter-hegemonic approach of her art inspires young generations to question the society we live in. The history written and being written by colonizers/winners receives a chance to get re-written by the artist and the viewers who participate.

Christelle Oyiri’s new artwork for Tate Modern’s Infinities Commission is expected to be unveiled in April 2025.