Distance ardente : Mariam Abouzid Souali / Group show

On 3 July 2018 in Lagos, Nigeria, President Emmanuel Macron discussed the framework of a renewed partnership with the African continent where "part of our common future is at stake". To succeed in writing this new page of history, we must be aware of a starting point and a painful past, which both distance us from each other and attract us. The eleven artists in the exhibition invite us to take a closer look at the nature of some of the links that govern this relationship between the two continents.

The exhibition presents itself as a path that makes visible the steps to be taken in order to understand certain sufferings and to suggest the repairs necessary to invent a common future. In this context, the exhibition Burning Distance is an invitation to all audiences and a celebration of what enriches us: diversity.

The title in a way calls for "measuring the distance" between France and the populations of the African continent. In French-language literature and poetry, the term "ardent" refers to the inferno of love, the one that consumes lovers, while in other popular expressions, it testifies to the impatience, and sometimes even the violence, that governs certain situations.

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The final theme of the exhibition celebrates what we share in common and what is sacred today, the mix of cultures that is the fruit of our mutual attraction. Mariam Abouzid Souali's large paintings are an invitation to share and acknowledge a common history. Far from the stereotypes fabricated around different cultures by social networks, the artist wishes to play down our own era, marked by profound changes that are a source of individual and collective anguish.

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Artists : Mariam Abouzid Souali, Mustapha Akrim, Zainab Andalibe, Mohamed Arejdal, Hicham Ayouch, Hassan Bourkia, Diadji Diop, Simohammed Fettaka, Moataz Nasr, Khalil Nemmaoui, Fatiha Zemmouri

Curator : Hicham Daoudi