"Rite of Passage is the very first work created by Cuban artist Gabriela Pez since her arrival in residence at the Cité internationale des arts.

It offers a reinterpretation of the concept of the French anthropologist Van Gennep, who in 1909 described the rite of passage as an initiation, a process of transition through which all individuals pass in the course of their lives, leading to a higher state of consciousness that responds to the intrinsic demands of nature. Gabriela Pez incorporates her tropical world, her fascination with travel and the constant existential questions that abound in her work. Who are we, where do we come from and what constitutes our identity are some of the questions the artist tries to answer through drawings and watercolours - her preferred media - but also through analogue photography.

A narrative, self-referential and historical work, Rite of Passage presents a mixed-race, tropical Botticelli-like Venus whose wounds bear the marks of time, and whose posture calls out to us like a mirror in which Pez invites us to contemplate her own process of self-affirmation." — Dayneris Brito

More information on the event can be found here.