Minia Biabiany

In Difé - Nuit (2022–2023), the banana tree becomes a structuring presence through which Minia Biabiany maps the entangled histories of land, violence, and memory in Guadeloupe. Scattered across the installation as fragile ceramic pathways and charred wooden forms, the banana does not appear as fruit but as a spectral trace—an index of monoculture, extraction, and ecological rupture. Its repeated evocation constructs a shifting visual alphabet that guides the viewer’s movement through the space, while simultaneously slowing perception and anchoring the body within a landscape marked by trauma.

The banana tree here condenses the island’s colonial and postcolonial histories, from plantation economies to the enduring contamination caused by chlordecone. Positioned alongside materials marked by fire—burnt wood, volcanic references—the work situates the plant within a broader ecology of transformation and destruction. Fire, understood both as geological force and symbolic agent, reshapes the terrain just as colonial systems have reshaped the land. In this context, the banana emerges as a silent witness: a vegetal form that absorbs and reflects histories of exploitation while remaining embedded in the present. Biabiany thus reconfigures the banana beyond its role as commodity, activating it as a mnemonic device within a landscape where body, territory, and memory are inseparable.