Akpaku, calabash in Éwé (a language spoken in Togo), is a fruit used in the dry state for various uses which has above all a symbolic function in certain African beliefs, that of a ritual object materializing the shape of the invisible world on Earth and serving to preserve sacred decisions between men and divinities. In the Hortillonnages, the work of Kokou Ferdinand Makouvia takes up this ritual. Akpaku summons the ancestors of the places for a conversation with the elements of the site in order to think on the preservation of this environment and its identity. During the creation process, the artist collects small objects on either side of the plots and collects memories from the inhabitants of the towns near the site. Filled with these finds and hermetically sealed, the calabash then forms the core of a gigantic floating ceramic lettuce, in homage to the market gardening era of the Hortillonnages. Lettuce leaves come from the four elements of nature used through the ceramic technique: earth and water, then air and fire. Like protective walls, they constitute an intelligent architecture around the calabash, a “sacred space” of conversation between the living forces of the Hortillonnages. The work then becomes a concentrate of the energies of the site. The visitor is invited to participate in this Akpaku ritual, this great and infinite conversation, by saying a few words on a handful of earth that he can throw in the water next to the installation.
The artist
Kokou Ferdinand Makouvia