We carried out this installation from September 9 to 16, 2012 on the Digue du Large. A week in front of the sea, drunk with the wind and the sun, doing this ridiculous and magnificent gesture together. The work withstood a force 9 mistral, but not a few human hands. We have seen of our work only what we give you to see here. Barely completed, the installation was destroyed by a passer-by from La Digue and not a single gold leaf was found around it! We will never know what displeased him so much, or perhaps this passer-by got caught up in the work, seeing in it valuable material ? The investigation was vigorously carried out within the Port and will remain unanswered: who stole the gold from Africa ? that was the question asked, they simply told me at the security service secretariat… The two days that followed, we again covered a few blocks with what was left of the adhesive, to finally see from the sea, during a boat trip, the bursts of light from Golden Africa…
Adrift project
The transition to modernity
February 2008
Stainless steel, gold adhesive, glass and metal
When he was asked at the start of 2008 to think about an urban art project for the Casablanca festival, Hassan Darsi immediately considered reinvesting the “Globe Zevaco”, overhanging with its used majesty an old underground passage that had been bustling and closed for a long time. Once again, the golden adhesive will be the material of the “implementation”, the “crown” of an ephemeral action, but carrying a possible rehabilitation of the place. The passage of modernity - in reference to the situation of the site, between the old medina and the modern city will see the light of day in the form of a model, restoring the architecture of Zevaco and projecting the intervention with golden adhesive of the artist. Reality will prefer to do without Hassan Darsi and keep only the idea of the project, formally reinvested in a brushing of copper paint. From this looting of ideas, only a few press articles will remain, carefully preserved by the artist, awaiting a potential “re-exploitation”. The passage of modernity will then take on a new (political) dimension through the story of a plundered project and its setting in an artistic situation.
(Excerpt from the text "An implementation of the surface… and vice versa", florence renault, June 2009).