With the exhibition Beliefs: making and undoing the invisible, the Institute of Cultures of Islam and Africa in Visu questions the evocative power of the religions, superstitions and myths of the African continent, claimed by artists as a place of experimentation, slips, frictions and negotiations.
Far from the panorama and stereotypical stories, sixteen photographers and videographers grasp in a poetic, critical or offbeat way the question of "believing", its conventions, practices and representations. Their works dialogue between reality and fiction, sketching beliefs in movement, imagining their connections and their evolution over the course of an "archipelagic thought". They divert the incarnation of religious authority to resist dominant patterns, inscribe the voodoo cult in the memory of slavery, bring together the devotion of pilgrims and individual resilience, transform traditional rites in the digital age, capture the vibrations of the trance and the mysteries of the spell…
The exhibition is activated during performances and is accompanied by a multidisciplinary program combining performing arts, round tables and films. The Saharan trance and the electro-indus merge, the mouride ceremonial is transformed into an immersive multimedia experience and the full moon is celebrated during an alternative evening, while conferences and projections address the advent of the sacred, ostracism which strikes the "witches", or the way in which the artists make the invisible visible. Finally, the young public benefits from a dedicated offer offering musical tales, cine-snacks and the production of a magic recipe book.
Transcendence manifests itself in the most unpredictable forms to the rhythm of this new artistic and cultural season, the first sequence of a 100% African year at the Institute of Cultures of Islam.
The exhibition includes work by Nabil Boutros, Samuel Fosso, Rahima Gambo, Maïmouna Guerresi, Éric Guglielmi, Bruno Hadjih, Bénédicte Kurzen & Sanne de Wilde, Mohammed Laouli, Nicola Lo Calzo, Giya Makondo Wills, Josèfa Ntjam, Léonard Pongo, Btihal Remli, Tabita Rezaire, Seumboy VRAINOM
