TESPRIT
GERARD TETE
BIOGRAPHY
TESPRIT highlights the world of Dzimakplao - uneducated children - in Mina, their mother tongue. By sculpting thongs (commonly known as fags), essential accessories in African habits, he addresses the essential question of the condition of street children. He transforms these sandals extracted from rubbish and landfills into a real work of art. As if to give these children a second life, a second chance.
For him, we can understand the social class of a person by observing the state of his flip-flops:
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Those who wear new flip-flops and throw them away as soon as they are old-fashioned or slightly worn
Those who wear them and can change them as soon as they wear out
Those who even when they are worn, patch them up with, wire, fabric, glue, they often do not,
almost no more soles, but they remain shoes… Like those of DZIMAKPLAO.
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Like these paintings, in sparkling colors, it gives back cheerfulness and hope in the harshness of this difficult daily life of street children. He challenges us and invites us to look a little more at these children. His work, of disconcerting maturity for his young age, is a call for more compassion, benevolence and mutual aid. He believes in man and hopes for a brighter future for these children.
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Born in 1994 in Lomé, Foli kossi Gerard TETE, is self-taught, when he paints and sculpts, he is full of a creative spirit; "The spirit of TETE", hence its name TESPRIT.
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His first personal exhibitions "Dzimakplao" took place in 2021 at Onomo hotel (Togo) in partnership with the French Institute of Lomé and at the Soview Gallery (Ghana). An extension of his work will be presented at the Goethe Institute Togo with “20 unknown stories”. He was also invited to the 2022 edition of the Gnanamaya Festival of Bobo Dioulasso.
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TESPRIT, lives and works in Lomé (Togo).
PORTFOLIO
EXHIBITIONS
Solo exhibitions
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2021
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Dzimakplao / Hotel Onomo - Lomé, Togo
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Dzimakplao / Gallery soview - Accra, Ghana
Collective exhibitions
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2021
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20 Unknown stories / Goethe Institut - Lomé, Togo
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Artméssiamé / Paul Ahyi Museum - Lomé, Togo
Residential homes
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2022
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Gnanamaya / French Institute - Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina Faso
STEPS
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TESPRIT's artistic approach is innovative, committed and ecological. His most important material, the sandal, he collects from the rubbish and landfills, or often he meets the Dzimakplao. He rummages through this rubbish, to find poignant stories, filled with perseverance and often sad ambitions, which each of his sandals tell.
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He recycles, sculpts into a work of art, a material that is basically waste, his approach marks the ambivalence of life, this ability to switch from one state to another, from one condition to another, and above all to show that the Dzimakplao, these street children, can get out of this condition, by themselves, by the help of society, by love and action.
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A strong, responsible and so topical approach to our management of the planet, our resources, our waste, an invitation to recycling, to respect the planet.
Découvrez davantage mon univers avec ces vidéos...
Ma collaboration avec la magnifique Laura Prince
pour son clip Flying Until totalement réalisé au Togo.
Ma démarche de création, de recherche des sandales usées, dans les décharges de Lomé.
Mon exposition Gli Abandonnati
au festival Muse Salentine.
L'heure à laquelle vous franchirez les portes de l'académie des beaux-arts approche, ou déjà derrière vous mais encore fraîche dans votre mémoire. Vous êtes un artiste maintenant. Que faire ensuite? Le podcast "Rise above the Void" traite du gouffre du néant vécu par les artistes débutants après avoir terminé l'académie et de la manière de grimper dans la lumière. Dans le premier épisode, le créateur de podcasts Geert Vlieger parle à quatre artistes des problèmes qu'ils rencontrent dans leur carrière naissante. Dans les épisodes suivants, Geert choisit quatre de ces problèmes et invite des experts qui offrent des idées et des conseils pour surmonter les obstacles sur votre chemin.