This exhibition addresses the idea of a collective memory made up of a myriad of stories, accounts, questions and experiences scattered in our individual, personal and intimate memories. This collective memory comes to light in this exhibition in the works of artists that remind us of the reconstruction of a common, universal memory, bringing a new perspective on contemporary creation originating from Africa and its diasporas.

When words and memories are forgotten, destroyed, erased or cut short, there is an urgent need to unveil a counter narrative, to bring multiple histories into coexistence and reveal what has been left unsaid — a need responded to by the 22 artists featured in exhibition, curated by Nadine Hounkpatin and Céline Seror. The defining feature of these works is their desire to transcend the boundaries of art, to “embody the elsewhere” and to illustrate the diversity of our shared individual and, ultimately, collective histories.

Through the multiplicity of techniques (painting, textiles, sculpture, video, performance...), the works presented bear witness to the committed practice of artists, strong in their narrative power and anchored in their fluctuating geographies and in their time. By questioning our thought mechanisms, Memoria : récits d’une autre Histoire [Memoria: accounts of another History] aims to encourage a dialogue on our ability to move away from our point of view, to listen to different narratives and to (re)question what we believe to be the standard, the reference..The exhibition is conceived as a stage made up of proposals in the vast task of building a jointly shaped future where our conscious and unconscious memories would finally be calmed and soothed.

More information can be found here.