doris duhennois
who remembers the old fountain
Researched, directed and edited by doris duhennois & filmed and assisted by Mara Chavez
This fountain was inaugurated on the 12th of July 1856 in the French colony of Martinique which still legally belongs to France today.
The fountain celebrated the arrival of fresh and clean water to Fort-de-France
a much-needed necessity
a real progress
but who built the fountain is another obscure(d) story in the aftermath of the abolition of slavery.
a story involving forced labour and racial supremacy and punitive laws,
limitation of movement and imposition of heavy taxation.
and those who can’t pay must work
and their work must be used to make
generations after generations after generations of Martiniquais
remember the great progress undertaken
under the rule of white settlers.
but who remembers?
the walls
the stones
bear memory
the overgrown trees
the iguanas
the ghosts
bear memory
and work slowly
consistently
unfathomably their way
towards forgetting the name of the man
who thought that place was his.