Crossing Voices

Based on rare archives, the exemplary adventure of Somankidi Coura – an agricultural cooperative founded in Mali in 1977 by West African immigrant workers living in workers’ accommodation in France – sheds light on the violence of colonial agriculture and the ecological challenges in Africa today.

“Progress is when country folk leave the land to become workers. It’s always been so and will always be so.” However, the film of Bouba Touré and Raphaël Grisey leaves no place for the stories we expect. Here, it’s more about opposite paths and counter-stories. France is rich, yes, but in racism, inequality and violence. So immigrant workers, after long years of slums and exhausting poorly paid work, are ready to return to their homeland; men and women are ready to switch from worker to peasant. Before their voices speak out and cross, we first hear Bouba Touré’s voice accompanied by his images. An immigrant worker in France, factory worker, then film projectionist and photographer, he has witnessed all the struggles, it seems, be it those of undocumented migrants or the story of the Somankidi Coura cooperative, founded in 1977 by migrant workers who returned to Mali and which he co-founded. So this is a story of a return to revive agriculture on home ground, in opposition to the terrifying legacy of the colonial agricultural policies. Mixing images by Bouba Touré and other vital archives, the film traces the trajectory of the world founded on a persistent imperialism. Edited around comings and goings, voices and journeys criss-cross, answer and repeat each other. The leaps in time leave the systems intact. An outstanding memorial film, in the face of time, against time. This time which “counts a lot” as Bouba Touré says. “I want to live in time; as I don’t want to die, I walk with time.”

Clémence Arrivé

Since 2006 Touré and Grisey have worked together on collaborative projects. It lead to various workshops, film and theatre production for example with the theatre group Kaddu Yaraax in 2017 and 2019, as well as publications and texts, such as Sowing Somankidi Coura, a Generative Archive (2017, Archives Book publishers) Their works were shown amongst other venue at Kàddu Yaraax Theatre Forum Festival (SN), Kunsthall Trondheim (NO), Archive Kabinett, Savvy Contemporary, HKW, Neue Berliner Kunstverein (DE), Den Fries (DK), 9^th Contour Biennale (BE), Parco Arte Vivente (IT), Un Lieu pour Respirer, Centre Pompidou (FR), Dhaka Art Summit (BD), Open Justice (CA) and in Konsthall Göteborg (SE).