Première nécessité

On a screen, Stellar Mechanism moves seven golden stars in real time, linked by a black ribbon, inside a large ring. These are the stars above a chosen artist at this very moment. A phone she keeps with her transmits her position, to within about ten kilometres, and a web page continuously recalculates the sky above her. When Vidya-Kélie is in Mauritius, they are the stars of the southern hemisphere. When she is in Paris, those of the north. In between she travels, and the work travels with her.

Throughout the exhibition, the public looks at the sky of someone who is not there, and who is nevertheless somewhere, under these precise stars.

This gesture shifts the centre of the world. In 1884, Greenwich became the prime meridian, at the height of the British Empire. Today, satellites and algorithms tell us where we are. Here, the landmark is an artist. In 2009, in support of the general strike in Guadeloupe, Édouard Glissant, Patrick Chamoiseau and seven other authors published the Manifesto for “products” of high necessity. Beyond basic necessities, they defended what gives meaning to a life: culture, creation, dignity. Première nécessité takes up their words and moves them: art and the sky join what we cannot do without. A city without art and culture keeps functioning, but it stops living.