Manifesta 15 @ Barcelone, Espagne : Marie-Claire Messouma Manlanbien

In her work, the multi-disciplinary artist Marie-Claire Messouma Manlanbien creates stories and poetic narratives that draw on a wide range of cultural and mythological influences, conjuring a ‘plural identity’. While exploring femininity, maternity and healing, Manlanbien dedicates heightened attention to practices and beliefs that have historically been questioned, ridiculed, forbidden and even erased by colonial forces. In making her work, the artist cites and incorporates craft traditions, ancient symbology and medicinal plants. At the Monastery of Sant Cugat, a place where spirits are restored and fortified, she builds an alternative temple for healing and renewal based on ancestral knowledge as well as natural remedies, which she invents and invoke entities from different realms. In a church dating to the 12th century, she recreates a temple, in which water – a symbol of purification, connection, cleansing and renewal – is the central element.