HOMO-SARGASSUM Artist Residency Program

Following a two months artist residency program where five Martinican artists (Nicolas Derné, Annabel Guérédrat, Gwladys Gambie, Ricardo Ozier-Lafontaine and Henri Tauliaut) and four Jamaican artists (Camille Chedda, Oneika Russell, Jordan Harrisson and Sheldon Green) have created either photographs, site specific installations, aesthetic research, performances, paintings or video-works that reflect their imagined links between art,
technology and science, a temporary site restitution of final or ongoing work, curated by Matilde dos Santos, will be presented in Martinique at the HOLDEX ENVIRONMENT company site on June 25th and 26th.

The artist residency program is part of the Foundation’s HOMO SARGASSUM video-exhibition project, dedicated to the proliferation of the sargassum seaweed and launched on November 10, 2020 with a short 8’ film available here. The project was initiated in 2019 by Artistic Director Vanessa Selk and French artist Louisa Marajo, with curatorial
support from curator and foundation president Dr. Tatiana Flores. “Our goal is to raise international awareness about the multiple afflictions and potentialities of the sargassum”, specifies Marajo, who started incorporating photographs of sargassum into her sculptures a few years ago.


While the artist residency program gave artists the space to collaborate with scientists and researchers to discover the role art can play in combating the sargassum’s toxic effects, the public event will physically embody this connection. “During the residency each artist had a
unique relationship with the HOLDEX ENVIRONMENT industrial site and with the invited experts and scientists. These individual relationships with this singular setting, whether in person or virtually, have guided their creations and practices; the resulting works, despite their great diversity, retain a fairly intimate relationship with the site.”, states Matilde dos Santos. “Launched while many cultural institutions were still shut down due to COVID-19 restrictions, this residency program is key for opening up to alternative cultural spaces and new audiences”, adds Vanessa Selk.

The works exhibited during the restitution will then be presented in the next stages of the HOMO SARGASSUM project: an experimental documentary film, produced in three episodes by the end of the year, and an itinerary exhibition that will begin in Puerto Rico in late 2022.


The HOMO SARGASSUM project is made possible by the support of the Winthrop-King Institute and the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science of Florida State University, Cortada Projects, and the support of RUBIS MECENAT and its InPulse Art Project, SARA and HOLDEX ENVIRONMENT.