For the past two years, Dimani Mathieu Cassendo has carefully guarded every bottle that his thirst for alcohol has left empty. A way to visualize the place that the drink occupies in everyday life, to quantify its consumption, to reduce it and even turn it into collectibles.
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“It’s a cartoonist’s joke: to make a comic strip you need paper, a pencil, a ruler and beer! I realized that alcohol is a creative crutch. I wasn’t healthy, it eats up my energy and I wanted to get healthy… I decided to do something. »
Dimani Mathieu Cassendo, 31, made his name as a cartoonist but now describes himself as a visual storytelling artist. What matters is telling a story, be it with drawing, sculpture, writing or even animation.
His dedicated work has often given me food for thought in recent years. So I wanted to hear the artist talk about the “Year of the Bottle” – a creative cycle that started last January – suddenly his speech would bring other facts to my attention again…
“I’ve always wondered what I can do for society, and for ten years the answer was: talk about social issues like racism and feminism. I still believe in fighting for what’s important to us, but I don’t agree with it like I used to. Before I said things were none of my business and I collected likes because we weren’t all happy together… We were trauma bonding [on se liait à travers nos traumatismes] ! »
The empty bottles that the artist began collecting to gauge his alcohol consumption surprisingly became a reflection of his creative life…
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
Dimani Mathieu Cassendo
“I looked at the bottles and figured we’d put them aside after they’d done their job. Then I saw myself in those bottles. I fulfill my mission, I carry social messages and as soon as they are shared on the internet or in brochures, I am empty. What do I do next? I fill myself with another message, I carry it and I empty myself again? Is only the message important or also the vehicle? Eventually that will be enough… I’ve seen activists suffer! I understood that it is necessary to be important to yourself. »
The bottle has become a much bigger symbol than the drink. Dimani Mathieu has therefore decided to take care of everyone who crosses his path: “I promised to paint each bottle and give it a story. »
The artist presents me with the very first container that had the right to be transformed. It’s painted a bright, cheerful yellow. We can read certain phrases including: “I am learning from the past, I am enjoying the present and I am giving back to the future. I have time, I won, thanks. I own nothing, I am everything. Ayibobo. »
“It’s like saying amen,” Dimani Mathieu explains to me when he sees my questioning look. The number three painted on the bottle in some places refers to the tarot: “It is associated with the Empress, who represents abundance, fertility and creativity. »
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
The bottles transformed throughout the year are finally blessed and sealed to allow those who acquire them to “conserve their energy.”
So the story this bottle tells is spiritual?
Dimani Mathieu Cassendo admits to me: “The root of everything I do is spirituality! Because of my mixed background, I feel as constrained in Quebec culture as I do in Haitian culture. I want to release this tension… I want to become an art monk! »
In addition, the bottles transformed throughout the year are finally blessed and sealed so that the people who acquire them can “keep their energy” … We are not entirely out of the commitment that made Dimani Mathieu Cassendo famous, but we feel it clearly a change of strategy.
“I always want to make engaging art. I can’t ignore the world around me, but before that 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 has made many enemies! Enemies that I had made for myself… I’m more trying 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 wears a necklace of bottles.
This is the memory that the bottle will offer throughout this new artistic cycle. In addition, we find the symbol in everything that Dimani Mathieu touches. For example, Bill – a papier-mâché sculpture made from pages from the artist’s diary – wears a necklace made of bottles. We can also see it in a triptych in the process of creation.
In the first picture, a child grows up stuck in a bottle. In the second, a matriarch appears to be weighed down by three bottles placed on her head like a burden or like a crown, who knows? On the third, the grown-up child has left his ship’s bottle while remaining marked by its shape. On his chest we can read: “CHWA”.
“It means ‘choice’ in Creole,” explains Mathieu Dimani Cassendo. For me, destiny is a mathematical sequence. Many years ago a decision was made and then we arrived… We didn’t do anything right or wrong, we’re just here. We have to try to make the best of what we have. We just have to make the right decisions for ourselves, that’s all. »