The word is one of the pieces of the game organized around a “force idea” where the site prevails. Joël Andrianomearisoa visits the locations he was asked to intervene within the framework of BIENALSUR’S territory: the streets of Buenos Aires, the Hotel de Inmigrantes venue of the MUNTREF, the urban spaces of the campus of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and the streets of Cotonou and Ouidah in Benin. A set of white typography texts on a black background appears as a puzzle to be solved. Those texts, which might be mistaken for advertising at first, will then acquire other meanings. The juxtaposed languages are identified and partially understood, and alienation emerges. This process, which is closely related to travel and migration -it is in the language and its uses where a major node of cultural estrangement is located-, represents an invitation to reflect upon the living conditions that we take for granted. Moreover, on both sides of the Atlantic this revision recovers the memories of the journeys compelled by slave trade, exile and forced migrations.
