DOLPHIN
LE HAVRE
FRANCE.
The ghost net dolphin was a collaborative commission with Yidinji artist Michael Boiyool-Anning for the permanent collection of Le Havre Museum of Natural History. Based on an expedition drawing by Charles-Alexandre Lesueur the dolphin joins an installation of ghost net artworks by artists in Australia’s north-east. The installation of ghost net works entitled The Art Of Ghost Nets was curated by Geraldine le Roux and forms part of a significant exhibition at the museum.
The exhibition L’intimité d’un lien (1801-2021) – The Intimacy of a Bond (1801 – 2021)
honours the relationship between Australia and Le Havre. Presented are 220 drawings by Charles-Alexandre Lesueur and Nicolas-Martin Petit from Napoleon Bonaparte’s expedition to Australia (1800 – 1804).
This trip was the birth of a strong and lasting bond between two regions of the world. A link that continues to this day: because the collection of 8,000 drawings and manuscripts by Charles-Alexandre Lesueur kept at the Le Havre Museum constitutes a major ensemble for Australian history, but also because the Museum continues to engage in dialogue with communities of South Australia, Tasmania and the Torres Strait, around this exceptional heritage and contemporary creation. The 200 drawings by Charles-Alexandre Lesueur and Nicolas-Martin Petit produced during the expedition, were presented alongside the museum’s heritage collections and 46 contemporary Australian creations. The exhibition gives a voice to communities on preoccupying environmental themes, but also allows them to make known or revive ancestral traditions.
