Genesis (Microcosmos 2)

Each of us replays the Genesis in our individual lives. We are born just as Life was born one day. We develop and die in a way similar to the evolution of species over the millennia. In our work we have always sought to bring out a kind of fraternity or proximity that exists between the animal world and the human world. Here, we again use animals as our intermediaries but this time, we also needed a human presence. We wanted to incorporate references to the founding myths and legends. To paraphrase Henri Michaux’s “we do not live in a time of miracles,” we would say that the modern western world does not live in a time of storytellers. Africa, being a land of oral histories and legends, the cradle of humanity, became an obvious choice. Complex notions had to be translated into a language accessible to all. The language of the storyteller is neither scientific nor pompous; it uses metaphor to explain scientific knowledge. The important thing was to not to use the storyteller as a teacher giving an object lesson, but rather as a wise man telling what he knows of the World, of the Universe, of Man.