Mawena Yehouessi

African American composer Julius Eastman’s music and voice take turns. Sparked by colonial and life history. Raw, radical, crystal clear. A multipart, flashy, transnational-collective performance by six artists. An homage.

A cinematographic and multimedia collage project by Mawena Yehouessi, whose ambition is to generate new contexts of co-creation as synonyms of alternative modes of coexistence. From script writing to filming, post-production and distribution, the film is an invitation to over fifty artists, researchers, students, and amateurs to retrace altogether-in a poetic and speculative way-the Myth of "Lascar." The term Lascar is said to come from Persian, meaning "army." It was notably used during the 19th century to designate South East Asian native soldiers enrolled by the European colonial forces at sea. In the 1990s in France, Lascar has become a contemptuous qualifier, referring to 2nd and 3rd generation French BIPOC kids from the suburbs-from their daily struggles to their knowledge-making.

African American composer Julius Eastman’s music and voice take turns. Sparked by colonial and life history. Raw, radical, crystal clear. A multipart, flashy, transnational-collective performance by six artists. An homage.

A cinematographic and multimedia collage project by Mawena Yehouessi, whose ambition is to generate new contexts of co-creation as synonyms of alternative modes of coexistence. From script writing to filming, post-production and distribution, the film is an invitation to over fifty artists, researchers, students, and amateurs to retrace altogether-in a poetic and speculative way-the Myth of "Lascar." The term Lascar is said to come from Persian, meaning "army." It was notably used during the 19th century to designate South East Asian native soldiers enrolled by the European colonial forces at sea. In the 1990s in France, Lascar has become a contemptuous qualifier, referring to 2nd and 3rd generation French BIPOC kids from the suburbs-from their daily struggles to their knowledge-making.