L'autre monde, 2025
Stéphane Foucaud

Here is the story of this work, which revolves around the power of three deities from the South Pacific:

Our playground, the exposed reef flat, held many surprises for the children of my tribe. Normally used for shellfish gathering at low tide, this reef-covered area allowed us to play tag, while sometimes spotting UFOs (Unidentified Floating Objects) stuck in the submerged crevices. Our clan territory, known as a dumping ground for all kinds of floating debris, resembled a lost and found office. The incongruous requests from neighboring tribes went hand in hand with our unexpected finds. "If you pick up a piano, even a smashed one, don't burn it, I need it for my artist daughter, she's going to use it to make an installation at the next Nouméa contemporary art biennial," asked our chief, the chief of the Kongouma tribe (on the East coast of New Caledonia), during a custom (a barter of good manners).

A strong current, branching off from many others originating throughout the South Pacific, surged into our bay, frequently dragging up kayaks, surfboards, and mooring buoys made in Japan. As for artifacts of a spiritual nature, Gaston, our "Pa a Péöpwö" (sorcerer), systematically inspected them to gauge the benevolence of their creator. We still remembered the day he smoked a Polynesian outrigger canoe: the changes in color and texture of the gases that slid along the hull, influenced by cloud energies, allowed him to validate or reject the object's integration into the community. Sometimes, he only needed to briefly place his hand on a material for a malevolent influence to be revealed to him.

After enduring three days of depression and a raging sea, we were ready to discover the latest survivors of the "Kuroshio" (a strong current originating in the Philippines, also known as the Pacific Gulf Stream). That day, Doudou, my little brother, slipped away from us for a solo hunt. Arriving at the spot, all of us camped behind Gaston, we spotted Doudou busying himself planting a statuette he had just pulled from the water in the sand. Horrified, "Pa a Péöpwö" rushed over to bury the wooden figure, which hadn't undergone any prior inspection, even further in the sand, taking great care not to touch it. The collectors had barely begun their search when, just below the surface, they discovered a second statuette, then a third: "This is impossible! Is it Christmas or something?!" growled the magician. In his haste, he untied his sarong and used it as a net to pull the wooden pieces from the waves. He then paraded around in his torn briefs in front of the entire assembly, who were seized by uncontrollable laughter. Next, after carefully covering his body with a protective concoction of his own making, he placed each statuette face to face on the beach, in a kind of mystical trigonometry traced by a path of small pebbles that connected them. This connection was meant to reveal the location of the deities and their respective powers.

My father, a keen student of tribal art, immediately recognized the influence of the Marshall Islands, the Solomon Islands, and Kiribati. One of the discoverers also reappeared before the ritual was over. A burst of car horns caused the crowd that had gathered around the sorcerer to scatter. Six-year-old Doudou, at the wheel of our automatic car, ventured out of the tribal encampment to reach the main road, mowing down a few chickens in the process due to poor visibility. He was immediately chased by the members of our clan who had vehicles. While this pursuit ensued to bring Doudou back to his senses, Gaston explained why his brother's behavior had suddenly changed: he had been infected by the Salomonaise: "The enchantment of this statuette consists of producing an extreme overconfidence, even the illusion of superpowers in the bewitched, a kind of cocaine shot times ten!" The group exchanged a few mocking smiles, suggesting they might have unmasked a devotee of the white powder. Then, still on the lookout for the inaccessible magical forces of the other two artifacts, he simulated sucking up the stones connected to each other, his eyes rolling back in his head. The verdict came at the very moment when the cars, battered by the "rodeo trip," were bringing the fugitive back: "The Marshallese and the Kiribati were created by sorcerers who came to the aid of their colleague; they are protectors charged with limiting the power of the Solomonese, who seeks autonomy."

“Is there AI in mine?" Doudou asked, now under close observation. Intrigued by his sudden powers of thought, I waited to see the academic results of this dunce, boosted by the influence of the wooden doll. Meanwhile, the “Pa a péöpwö" scratched his head: burning or hiding the statuette wouldn't break its hold on my little brother; only returning to its creator would undo the spell. A month had passed during which Gaston, exhausted, used all his magic to avoid a journey into the unknown. To no avail. Doudou suddenly became HPI (High Intellectual Potential), according to his school's teaching staff.

It was ultimately the Solomon Islands sorcerer who unexpectedly came to us. The boys, returning from fishing, brought ashore a funerary canoe that had run aground on a reef exposed offshore. The wooden boat, hewn from two blocks of wood, was covered with an open shroud containing ashes, scattered human bones, and a partially charred healer's kit, bearing the marks of desecration. Hence the absence of a lid and the removal of the statuettes, surely deemed uninteresting by the unfortunate onlookers. Carefully returned to their owner, the three artifacts were once again sealed in the floating tomb. We escorted them out of our currents, lulled by the incantations conducive to travel that Gaston uttered. Possessed by the very depths of the natural forces that had shaped our cosmogony for the occasion, he serenaded us all the way back. And the teacher was astonished the very next day by the brother's sudden regression, proof that he had indeed been freed from the spell...