Broken Silence

Broken Silence

Faceless Head No.018
  • Dimensions: 25 × 35 cm
  • Materials: Terracotta, steel filings, natural pigments, rust
  • Year: 2015
  • Availability: Unique piece
  • Price: Upon request
Artistic Statement of the Head

This terracotta head, scarred by corrosion and cracks, appears to emerge from a long silence. Its uneven reliefs and oxidized surface embody a fractured memory—constrained yet still present—like a withheld voice seeking release.

Artistic Statement of the Collection

100 Faceless Heads brings together one hundred sculptures that embody fragments of human stories. Each head is a silent witness, carrying personal and collective memories. Together, they create a sensitive mosaic of the human condition in the face of time and oblivion.

Symbolism

The work suggests the fragile resilience of buried memories. It symbolizes the struggle between the silence imposed by history and the vital impulse to transmit and bear witness.

The “100 Heads WITHOUT Faces” Collection

A Sculpted Memory, a Universal Story

The “100 Heads WITHOUT Faces” collection brings together one hundred unique sculptures, handcrafted from terracotta and rusted metal. These works embody the invisible faces of our collective history: undocumented migrants drowned at sea, victims of slavery, those forgotten in genocides, the anonymous whose memories are fading.

Each of these heads, deliberately devoid of features, symbolizes a life, a past, a story suspended in time. Faceless, they become the silent bearers of individual and collective memories, inviting us to reflect on our shared humanity.

A Committed and Universal Message

Through this series, the artist invites us to acknowledge these erased lives and to rebuild bridges between the past and the future. “I open the graves of the undocumented migrants who drown in the seas and in the deserts, I denounce the macabre sounds of the cannons of war…”, he affirms, thus expressing the emotional and political power of this work.

“100 Heads WITHOUT Faces” is much more than an art collection: it is a sculptural archive, a call to remembrance, to dialogue, and to a better understanding of our common roots.

Gustave Akpéhou DJONDA

Self-taught Visual Artist

Passionate about collective memory and questions of identity, the artist works with clay and metal to give form to what is often invisible or forgotten. Through the series “100 Heads Without Faces,” he offers a space for reflection and dialogue on the wounds of the past and the hopes for a more just future.

Comme un poisson dans l’eau, exposition environnementale

2016
|
Lomé, Togo

Les Géants se lèvent, l’Afrique avance

2012
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Lomé, Togo

Ce Rouge qui m’appartient

2000
|
Lomé, Togo