PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — An adaptation of an immersive art installation created by the French-Caribbean artist Julien Creuzet for last year’s 60th Venice Biennale is now on view at Brown University’s David Winton Bell Gallery.

Titled “Attila cataract your source at the feet of the green peaks will end up in the great sea blue abyss we drowned in the tidal tears of the moon,” the installation spans the full gallery space and includes music, poetry, video animations, steel sculptures, digital paintings, and knotted and fringed pole sculptures made of string, rope and twine. The work focuses on water as a site of trauma as well as emancipation, and it explores the intercultural identities of the Caribbean and African diasporas.

Brown is the first site in the U.S. to present the installation. Creuzet, who is based in Paris, worked with the Bell’s exhibitions director and chief curator, Kate Krazcon, and the Venice exhibition’s curators, Céline Kopp and Cindy Sissokho, to reimagine the multisensory installation he created for the biennale’s French Pavillion.

“We’re thrilled to be presenting an artist whose practice is truly multidisciplinary — incorporating poetry, music, moving image, sculpture and painting,” Kraczon said.

Some elements from the original exhibition, including videos and music, remain, while others were removed or added. For example, the presentation at Brown debuts six large steel floor sculptures that were commissioned for the Bell and are installed on the gallery’s floor and near its entrance in the lobby of Brown’s List Art Building. The island-like sculptures, which depict tropical foliage and animals, were fabricated by Ward Manufacturing in Warren, Rhode Island. 

“Because we commissioned the pieces and produced them locally, we avoided shipping from Europe, which reduced our carbon footprint and supported our local economy,” Kraczon said.

Sound and music are another major component of the exhibition. Visitors are immersed in a soundscape of six songs with lyrics written by Creuzet, predominately performed in creolized French with real-time translation in Portuguese, English and Spanish available on a screen. 

The selection committee for the French Pavilion at the Venice Biennale was drawn to Creuzet’s “plurality of practices” and noted that he is among a group of artists from the Caribbean “whose place in history is often ignored and who claim a new and critical place in the discourse on identity,” according to a statement. 

Thematically, Creuzet’s artistic practice has long referenced legacies of colonialism and the role of waterways, and the exhibition at Brown extends that focus to Providence, Kraczon said. The artist was born in France and spent much of his childhood in Martinique before returning to Europe as a young adult.  

“Julien Creuzet is fascinated by the watery connection between Venice, the Caribbean island of Martinique, where his family has lived for generations, and Providence, conceptualizing the migration of the pavilion across a Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean dense with histories that have long informed his work,” Kraczon said. “His presentation at Brown is an adaptation to Providence waterways and colonial themes that are present on campus and across the region.” 

While adapting his installation for Brown, Creuzet came to campus, visited Martin Puryear’s Slavery Memorial on Brown’s Quiet Green and explored the ideas in Brown’s pioneering Slavery and Justice Report.

Kraczon said scholars at Brown study theorists who propel Cruzet’s thinking, including the Martinican writer, philosopher and literary critic Édouard Glissant, making his work an especially fitting subject for discussion and programming on campus. The gallery plans to develop a publication in both French and English that will emerge from a public symposium on Creuzet’s practice in relation to the Caribbean diaspora that will be held at Brown on April 10 and 11.

An opening performance and celebration for the exhibition will take place on Thursday, Feb. 20, at Brown’s Lindemann Performing Arts Center in the Perelman Arts District. With video, dance, live drumming and vocals, the performance is a collaboration between Creuzet and Brazilian choreographer Ana Pi. Titled “Algorithm ocean true blood moves,” the piece was co-commissioned by the nonprofit arts organization Performa and the Hartwig Art Foundation, and features dancers from New York’s Ailey School engaging with knotted and fringed pole sculptures that will later be installed in the gallery for the remainder of the exhibition. 

“To be opening an exhibition at the Bell with a performance at The Lindemann is an incredible example of the collaborative work that the Brown Arts Institute enables,” Kraczon said. 

The exhibition is on view through June 1.