Romuald Hazoumè combines West African traditions with contemporary ecological, social, and socio-political concerns in his work. Drawn from moments of everyday life, his objects carry traces of a shared existence – not as representations, but as charged symbols that detach from their origins and continue to resonate within us.
For the Climate Biennale, the artist presents symbols based on the Fâ system, a centuries-old knowledge and divination system of the Yoruba-speaking cultures of West Africa, which is recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage1. They function as a precious instrument for navigating life, grounded in a cosmic order and a metaphysics of natural forces and ancestral knowledge. On the banks of Vienna’s Schwedenplatz, these potent signs unfold their universal relevance in a desire for reflection and orientation for our community. Their spiritual and epistemic dimension gives these flags, which are part of the artist’s Fâ series, a significance that extends far beyond its original environment, transforming them into a globally resonant practice of experience and thought.
Hazoumè’s flags become image-membranes, opening between inside and outside, between Oikos (Greek οἶκος / ECO: the house we share) and the Other (ALTER), and the fabric of paths, materials, breath, and labour. Left to the wind, they leave the space of all possession.2 What we encounter in this process is not the Other itself, but what the Other moves within us.
The self is shaped by the Other,3 by the counterpart – not to possess, but to assume responsibility. The flags hold this tension open; they allow the Other to remain foreign, and precisely therein effective. ALTER ECO is not about merging – nor separating – nor withdrawing – (No) Funny Games. Hazoumè addresses a life in reciprocal contact, in which every movement leaves traces4. The flags do not merely flutter as symbols on our shared house; they show us that the Others are not outside, but part of what we share.
1 The Fâ system (cf. Ifâ) was recognized by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2005 and was incorporated into the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2008. See UNESCO, Ifa Divination System: https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/ifa-divination-system-00146 (accessed 13 February 2026) and UNESCO, Incorporation of items proclaimed Masterpieces in the Representative List, 1 October 2008: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000234698_eng (accessed 13 February 2026).
2 The ‘space of all possession’ refers to the concept of the commons, or oikos. In Roman law, this is referred to as res communis – resources open for use by everyone, such as air or water – and forms the basis of the idea of the commons in the European tradition.
3 According to Martin Buber, the self is not an inward, closed substance, but emerges in dialogue: ‘I become through the Thou; as I become I, I say Thou.’ for ‘All real life is encounter.’ See Martin Buber, I and Thou, Collected Works, Vol. 1, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1991, pp. 15f.
4 See Jacques Derrida: ‘The trace is not only the disappearance of the origin, but signifies that the origin was never even absent. It has always been constituted only through its receding to a non‑origin, thus becoming the origin of the origin. The trace is therefore the necessary condition for the construction of origin and meaning, yet exists itself as differentiation without a fixed ground.’ Translated from the French by Hans‑Jörg Rheinberger and Hanns Zischler. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1974; cf. original edition: Jacques Derrida, De la grammatologie, Éditions de Minuit, Paris, 1967, p. 90.