Milieu(X), from Castries to Saül

With Marc-Alexandre Tareau (Doctor of Ethnobotany and Health Anthropology)

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Marc-Alexandre Tareau: Scientific advice and interviews
Thomas Tilly: Sound recording and creation

It is estimated that more than 10,000 gold miners from the Lesser Antilles "populated" the interior of French Guiana between the end of the 19th century and the middle of the 20th century (Nicolas, 2016), as evidenced by the names of many short-lived villages (Florida, Sophie, Dieu-Merci, etc.), now disappeared, and still appear on many maps. The majority of them were British "subjects" originally from the island of Saint Lucia, which was then suffering the brunt of the sugar crisis (Orru). Today, a majority of French Guiana Creoles have Antillean ancestry linked to this period of French Guiana's history, and Antillean Creole is still widely spoken in the west or in the interior communes. The extensive ethnobotanical knowledge of people from Saint Lucia (Tareau, 2019) who lived in the interior of Guyana is due in particular to the multiple learning that this community was able to benefit from, in addition to its own island knowledge, by having been in prolonged contact with the Amerindian and Businenge populations whose living territories they shared. Marc-Alexandre Tareau

*About Milieu(X)

Conceived in 2021 by sound artist Thomas Tilly and ethnobotanist Marc-Alexandre Tareau, Milieu(X) is a long-term project addressing the relationship between the peoples of French Guiana and their territory.
Each instalment of the project explores the particular characteristics of a cultural group through the prism of its interdependent relationships with the various entities (places, animals, plants, spirits) that populate its environment. The exclusively sound-based pieces in the collection – which thus echoes the main mode of transmission of Amazonian knowledge – are all informed by the knowledgeable members of a community, working in collaboration with an anthropologist who has already been involved with the given community. Initially destined for French Guiana, the Milieu(X) project is conceived as a body of work with multiple finalities. Concerts and public debates, conservation of the intangible heritage, resources for younger people – each component of the series is intended as a “useful” object, situated at the crossroads of interpretations and ways of representing worlds.