Valérie John

Valérie John left Martinique to pursue her studies in Paris. She later settled in Senegal, then during her many trips to Gambia, Mali, and Mauritania, she developped interest in bogolan cloth, the dyeing practices of the Sarakolé (Soninke) women, and the production of indigo. After several years in Africa, she decided to return to Martinique to pursue her practice and then started to work as a teacher.

“Back on the island, V. John sets up her ‘the loom of cultural interweaving’, an expression she borrows from the Haitian poet René Depestre. Her work is a deep dive into the country’s memory. In Martinique, she rediscovers the color indigo, a reminder of an idealized Africa. Weaving makes her a “marker of words” and serves as a way for her to weave together and connect multiple stories, a series of gestures scattered by the repeated transshipment and displacements of Caribbean memories and bodies. The weaver assembles, writes, heals, publishes, and transforms oblivion into the fluid substance of a memory that is constantly being reconstituted.
To consider time as an indicator is also very important to V. John. Her suspended or elongated installations such as Et si les griots… (1998–2021), evolve over time, and the gold she applies to what she calls her “palimpsest bodies” gradually brings out the complexities of indigo black—a sign of what persisted, while changing, through the experience of the ship's hold.”

Chris Cyrille