This is some cool news from our friends at Allagash Brewing Company! They have unveiled a new public art installation in collaboration with Titi de Baccarat, a Portland based multidisciplinary African artist and activist.
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The installation at the brewery, created by de Baccarat with brewery-found materials including beer tap handles and welded pipes designed to look like two figures kneeling, symbolizes Titi and Allagash’s vision for togetherness and their hope for a positive, more unified future.
A plaque next to the bench outlines what the installation represents, reading:
This bench was created out of a mutual passion for building community. To create it, Allagash commissioned and collaborated with Titi de Baccarat, a multimedia artist who focuses on social injustice, cultural disparities, and how we may overcome them. This bench is intended to be a space for strangers and friends alike to deepen their understanding of one another, and is designed to evoke an alternative future where happiness is a collective project.
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Titi was born in Gabon and began to practice art in Africa amidst a complex political and social environment. He was forced to leave his country, and found refuge in Maine; he has been living in Portland since 2015. The Allagash team and Titi first met following an ad that Allagash placed in local newspaper Amjambo Africa, expressing the brewery’s support for racial equity, was used by Titi in a local art installation. After connecting directly, the two parties saw how their goals, in brewing and in art, matched up—and decided to collaborate on this project.
“I feel great joy and pride as an African artist and New Mainer to build, with Allagash Brewing, a fairer and more welcoming community for all through a bench where everyone, without exclusion, is invited to sit in a friendly atmosphere,” said de Baccarat. “I sincerely hope that this bench will play an essential role as a space for meeting, sharing, and a dialogue of tolerance and friendship between people of very diverse social, economic, racial, and cultural origins.”
You can view the Titi de Baccarat art installation at Allagash Brewing Company (50 Industrial Way, Portland ME 04103). The exhibit is free for the general public and no RSVP is required. For more information visit https://www.allagash.com/!
