File:There Are Only Ways In.webm

English: The film is loosely inspired by Anne-Louis Girodet’s portrait of Jean-Baptiste

Belley from 1797, and a blend of Belley’s and Atone Niane’s biographies. Jean-Baptiste Belley was born in Senegal circa 1746. At a young age he was sold as a slave, and taken by sailboat to the island of Saint-Domingue. Following the emancipation from the French colonial power, Saint-Domingue was renamed Haiti. After buying his own freedom, Belley became captain of the French army and the first black deputy of the French convention in 1793. He fought for the abolition of slavery and ultimately was betrayed by Napoleon in 1802. He died while still incarcerated in 1805. Atone Niane was born in Senegal in 1953. After graduating from school he traveled to Paris in order to study anthropology. After being disenchanted with his correlation in regard to his French identity he flew from Paris around 1980. In subsequent years he continuously moved around Europe and is currently based in Amsterdam. Niane is now affiliated with a contemporary art gallery with a strong focus on non-Western art. The film begins at a stormy shore in a nordic bucolic area where Belley seems to have just landed. As the plot evolves we are taken on a journey through time and space that leads to an unexpected conclusion. A historical film collapses into a “certain live-performance”. The historical character and its contemporary counterpart mingle, both share a disillusionment that remains as a productive force when confronted with issues of equality and discrimination. It is perhaps in this area of turbulence that some ironies of history and its shortcomings can be made transparent and could even be somehow redeemed. Albeit scripted, the film was realized in an impromptu tenure. Following the path of words that, like music, make us move every time in a slightly different way, as the song is played once and again: like history, repeating itself? The film was part of the installation “Universality: Decorum of Thought and Desire”, presented in Guangzhou Biennial 2015, and developed in collaboration

with Tiong Ang, Atone Niane and others.