ANTANANARIVO
JANUARY 10 - JUNE 30, 2023
French-Ivorian photographer François-Xavier Gbré was invited by Fondation H for a free rein research and creative residency on the topic of Antananarivo’s architectural heritage, organized in two stages between January and April 2023.
The project stems from Fondation H’s desire to rehabilitate the historic heritage of downtown Antananarivo, and to understand the architectural and historical context against which the hundred-year-old new city emerged.
Following these periods of residency, François-Xavier Gbré presents the exhibition Lova [Heritage] from April 26 to June 30, 2023, in a building that has been unoccupied for more than 10 years, located at Isoraka in Madagascar capital’s downtown. This project is part of a series of exhibitions inside and outside the walls built by Fondation H since 2019 in Antananarivo and Paris.
Lova, a gender-neutral given name, means “heritage.” Designed with the concept of transmission and memory in mind, Lova [Heritage] is a photographic installation that comes to life in a building that itself symbolizes the city’s architectural past. The exhibition brings the building to life, allowing the public to discover or rediscover the place as they stroll through it.
Using photography as the medium, François-Xavier Gbré looks at what the strata of time reveal in public space, sometimes inspite of themselves, and which so becomes a signifier of the larger-scalehistory of the country and its society. Through this exhibition, the photographer allows the past – through several archive images recomposed in large frescoes positioned at eye level on the first floor – to intersect with the present, through pictures from his wanderings in Antananarivo, which give structure to the second floor of the building in the shape of constellations and installations. The future is evoked on the top floor of the building, through several pictures displayed in the heart of a garden.
To mark the opening of Fondation H’s new space, a round-table discussion was held on April 26 on the topic of “Architectural heritage and the contemporary eye”, featuring the photographer, Alicia Knock (Curator for Contemporary Creation at the Centre Pompidou, Paris) and Mirana Rakotondramala (President of Association AMI Antsahatsiroa Miatrika, Antananarivo) and moderated by Minoarisoa Ralantomanana (Project Manager at Fondation H).
The entire discussion is available on our Soundcloud.
FRANÇOIS-XAVIER GBRÉ’S BIOGRAPHY
Born in 1978 in Lille, France, François-Xavier Gbrélives and works between La Rochelle, France and Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Combining time and geography, his work calls upon the language of architectureas a witness to memory and social change. He explores territories and revisits history through colonial vestiges and landscapes redefined by current events.In 2020, François-Xavier won the Louis Roederer Prize from the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie d’Arles. Between 2015 and 2022, he exhibited in various cultural institutions around the world, including France, Italy, theUnited States, Côte d’Ivoire and China. He took part in the Dakar Biennale 2022at the Musée des Civilisations Noires in Senegal. His works are found in the collections of several renowned cultural centers, including the Centre Pompidou in France, the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the United States and Fondation Hin Madagascar.