The Bittersweet Memory of the Plantation

The history and culture of the oppressed are rarely embodied in material objects. Yassine Ben Abdallah investigates the disappearance of archival materials regarding the enslaved and indentured labourers of the sugar plantations of La Réunion. The former French colony has been shaped by the monoculture of sugarcane, however, the only objects left of this history pertain to the white masters. How can stories of the labourers be narrated without objects testifying to their existence? Situated in the plantation museum, Ben Abdallah’s work creates a confrontational encounter where dripping sugar machetes oppose the master’s artefacts, raising the question: whose heritage and history are allowed to be preserved, narrated and immortalized?