About Bougainville Culture & Blog
Far away, in a corner of Pacific ocean you can discover in a map a lost island call Bougainville. Is located between Salomon Islands an Papua New State, and in this volcanic and paradisiac island where, at the end of XX century, lived a terrible Civil War. 20.000 people (10% population) dead in a few years (1988-1997). Fortunately, now there are peace in Bougainville guaranteed through australian troops. Is a weak peace, really, but an organisated reconciliation process is open from early 2000 and the peace accords have been promised a referendum on independence. In this 2015 it has not been held yet. Dammed Tristes Tropiques like the book of Claude Lévi-Strauss. A Sad Tropics.
The first european who contact the island was the french explorer Louis de Bougainville that named this new paradise as himself. Lowly and modest. But also in 1767 the Boungainville expedition discover in this trip, in Brazil, a plant with a singular beauty, spell and charm. Was the botanist Jeanne Baré, a woman disguised as a man sailor, who really found this plant named also like the expedition boss, again: Bougainvillia. Today boungainvillia plant lives in Tropic but also in Mediterranenan atmosphere. Needs specially light and sun, the smooth caress du roi soleil and its shadow teach calm and serenity to understand our environment. Give colors to our life, like Mondays in the Sun, at the end.
Pere Borrell del Caso (1835-1910) was a Catalan painter, illustrator and engraver best know for his painting Escaping criticism (1874), a good example of trompe-l'oeil, an art technique which uses realistic imagery to create the optical illusion that depicted objects exist in three dimensions. More or less something like internet, because the net is really not real, but it creates a psicological illusion that exist, sometimes more than the real world. If you have illusions read Chronicles of the hidden truth (1955) written by Pere Calders i Rossinyol (1912-1994), and discover that actually internet and their effects was imaginated before network era. Like politicians, merchants or magicians show us everyday, the reality is a real trompe-l'oeil. Only under Boungaville shadow can you imagine your authentic "deceive the eye".