For two years, Dimani Mathieu Cassendo has carefully guarded each bottle left empty by his thirst for alcohol. A way to visualize the place that drink occupies in one’s daily life, to quantify its consumption, to reduce it and even to transform it into collectibles.
“It’s a cartoonist’s joke: to make a comic strip, you need paper, a pencil, a ruler and beer! I realized that alcohol was a creative crutch. I wasn’t healthy, it was eating up my energy and I wanted to be well… I decided to do something. »
Dimani Mathieu Cassendo, 31, made his mark as a cartoonist, but now describes himself as an artist of visual storytelling. What matters is telling a story, whether using drawing, sculpture, writing or even animation.
His committed work has often made me think in recent years. So I wanted to hear the artist talk about the “year of the bottle” – a creative cycle that began last January – suddenly his speech would awaken me, once again, to other facts…
“I always wondered what I could do for society and for 10 years the answer was: talk about social issues like racism and feminism. I still believe in fighting for what is important to us, but I no longer agree with the way I used to do it. Before, I used to say that things weren’t my business and I picked up likes because we weren’t all happy together… We were doing trauma bond [on se liait à travers nos traumatismes] ! »
The empty bottles that the artist began to accumulate to assess his alcohol consumption surprisingly became the mirror of his creative life…
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
Dimani Mathieu Cassendo
“I looked at the bottles and I thought to myself that after they had done their job, we put them aside. Then, I saw myself in those bottles. I accomplish my mission, I carry social messages and once they are shared on the internet or in pamphlets, I am empty. What do I do next? I fill myself with another message, I transport it and I empty myself again? Is it only the message that is important or is the vehicle too? At some point, that’s enough… I’ve seen activists suffer! I understood that it is necessary to be important for oneself. »
The bottle has become a much bigger symbol than the drink. Dimani Mathieu has therefore decided to give care to all those who cross his path: “I promised each bottle to paint it and give it a story. »
The artist hands me the very first container that has had the right to a transformation. It is painted a bright, happy yellow. We can read certain sentences, among which: “I learn from the past, I savor the present and I give back to the future. I have time, I won, thank you. I own nothing, I am everything. Ayibobo. »
“It’s like saying amen », Dimani Mathieu explains to me, seeing my questioning gaze. The number three, painted in a few places on the bottle, refers to the tarot: “It is linked to the Empress, who represents abundance, fertility and creativity. »
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
The bottles transformed during the year will eventually be blessed and sealed, so that those who acquire them can “preserve their energy”.
The story that this bottle tells is spiritual, then?
Dimani Mathieu Cassendo concedes it to me: “The root of everything I do is spirituality! Because of my mixed background, I feel cramped in Quebec culture as much as in Haitian culture. I want to undo this tension… I want to become an art monk! »
Moreover, the bottles transformed during the year will eventually be blessed and sealed, so that the people who acquire them can “preserve their energy”… We are not completely out of the commitment that made Dimani Mathieu Cassendo famous, but we clearly feel a change in strategy.
“I always want to make engaged art. I can’t ignore the world around me, but before I was in confrontation. With all that bullshit about fighting people and the fact that I had to fight myself on top of that [avec l’alcool], that made a lot of enemies! Enemies that I had created for myself… There, I rather try to enter into a form of acceptance: this happens, what can I do with it? »
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
A papier-mâché sculpture by Dimani Mathieu Cassendo sports a necklace of bottles.
This is the reminder that the bottle will offer, during this new artistic cycle. Moreover, we find the symbol in everything that Dimani Mathieu touches. Bill – a papier-mâché sculpture crafted from pages from the artist’s diary – sports a necklace of bottles, for example. We can also see it in a triptych in the process of being created.
On the first painting, a child grows stuck in a bottle. On the second, a matriarch seems weighed down by three bottles placed on her head like a burden or like a crown, who knows? On the third, the child who has become an adult has left his ship-bottle, while remaining marked by his form. On his chest, we can read: “CHWA”.
“It means ‘choice’ in Creole, explains Mathieu Dimani Cassendo. For me, fate is a mathematical sequence. A choice was made many years ago and then we arrived… We didn’t do anything right or wrong, we’re just here. We have to try to do the best we can with what we have. We just have to make the right choices for us, that’s it that’s all. »