ANTANANARIVO
FEBRUARY 15 - MARCH 26, 2021
Fondation H - Antananarivo present Chère Embona, an exhibition by Malagasy-Italian photographer Christian Sanna. Born in 1989, Sanna hails from Nosy Be, an island north of Madagascar.
He moved to France in 2009 and graduated from the ETPA photography school in Toulouse in 2016. He currently lives and works in Paris.
From 2013 to 2018, when he last stayed on the island, Sanna traveled to Nosy Be on several occasions, capturing the island’s environment and transformations, as perceived—or not quite so—by black and white medium format film photography. These numerous images come to life in the series Lettres à Embona [Letters to Embona], presented for the first time at Fondation H – Paris(France), from December 2020 to January 2021.
Embona means nostalgia or reminiscence in Malagasy. Fondation H have invited Sanna to develop the second part of this series at Fondation H – Antananarivo from February 2021, with the exhibition Chère Embona. Chère Embona presents nine photographs from the series Lettres à Embona, printed on fabric, alongside an installation of all the photographs produced during those five years, connected by a thread like huge necklaces. The exhibition is completed by a booklet with a text by curator RinaRalay-Ranaivo.
In March 2021, as part of this exhibition, Christian Sanna and Fondation H - Antananarivo launched the project Lettres perdues [Lost Letters].