May 17th - September 27th, 2025
Sympnea
Emné Nasereddine, Fatim Soumaré, Hani Zurob, Ismaïl Bahri, Kan-Si, Majd Abdel Hamid, Mélinda Fourn, Robert Machiri, Thania Petersen
Sympnea
Sympnea
that is to say: to breathe together
Emné Nasereddine, Fatim Soumaré, Hani Zurob, Ismaïl Bahri, Kan-Si, Majd Abdel Hamid, Mélinda Fourn, Robert Machiri, Thania Petersen.
Here we have gathered. Time has stretched. Words have untied. Matter has shown itself vibrant, through pulsations. Here we have gathered. Time has stretched. Words have untied. Matter has shown itself vibrant, through pulsations.
Sympnea, from Ancient Greek sumpnoia. It is the term used by the Stoics to evoke the act of breathing together. Cosmogonic thought, of the One and of the whole: all conspires and all respires - in communion.
Things would be stirred by an immanent spirit of the world. A sigh. A cosmic sigh, a breath of life, or perhaps
a community of breath.
ñoot, in Serer language: to breathe, to give birth. Discourse was weak, words were punctured, therefore we repeated the gesture.
ñoot nu : to rest.
Our souls relapsed into the world, and we breathed together. With each heartbeat, the world was recreating itself.
We were still suffocating.
Breathe.
Our thoughts began to quiver. Thread, air, sound, tar. Forms unveiled themselves. We inhaled our dreams, exhaled our sorrows. Our bronchi curved gently, and we breathed once again
A combat breathing.
Sympnea,
For “breathing together”.
__________________
For the Stoics, the world would be an immense, living body, stirred and generated by a singular principle (a warm, intelligent breath). Before the Stoics, Aristotle had already employed the verb sumpneo (to co-breathe or conspire) in Politics, evoking the political necessity of forging a common breath within the city.
“Combat breathing” is a concept developed by Frantz Fanon in A Dying Colonialism (1959), regarding the suffocated (and recovered) breath of the Algerian people: “There is no occupation of territory, on the one hand, and independence of persons on the other. It is the country as a whole, its history, its daily pulsation that are contested, disfigured, in the hope of a final destruction. Under these conditions, the individual's breathing is an observed, occupied breathing. It is a combat breathing.”
Regarding the practice of ‘unveiling’, Sufism teaches that the world is constantly being recreated. In every moment, all returns to God at the rhythm of a breath. In Sufism: Expressions of the Mystical Quest (1977), Lalleh Bakhtiar writes: “At every instant, creation is annihilated and recreated. With every beat of our heart, we die and we are reborn. The world exists in an intense movement, ascending towards the vertical axis present in all things, to meet the Absolute descending to it in manifest forms.”
The trembling thought refers to the concept of “trembling thinking” dear to Édouard Glissant. A multiple, non- or anti-hegemonic thought that erupts from everywhere, in jolts: “It preserves us from systematic thoughts and systems of thought. It does not presuppose fear or uncertainty; it extends infinitely like an innumerable bird, wings sown with the black salt of the earth. It reassembles us in absolute diversity, in a whirlwind of encounters. A utopia that never settles and opens to tomorrow, like a shared sun and fruit.” (La Cohée du Lamentin: Poétique V, Gallimard, 2005).
Text copyright: Camille Lévy-Sarfati
Biographies d'artistes
© Khanh Nguyen Le
Emné Nasereddine writes. Her first book, Dance of the Fig Tree, winner of the Prix Émile-Nelligan in 2021, has been translated into English and adapted for opera (Salle Bourgie, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts). Her second book, Je suis l'homme aussi, a finalist for the Prix Leynaud, was published in February 2024.
She has published in numerous poetry magazines (Lettres québécoises, Moebius, Estuaire, Muscle, Zinc, Sève, etc.) and contributed to collective publications. Now based in Marseille, she is working on her third book, which explores the totalitarianism of language and the mystical materiality of the world.
Other projects include exhibitions such as Prière pour la fin des fins (text, performance and sound installation, with the artists Anasisana) in collective exhibition Nos douleurs montées sur un soleil comme sur un cheval de course, Festival Jaou, Tunisia, October 2024 and collaborations with visual artist Poline Harbali : exhibition of original works on paper Je suis l’homme aussi : Un livre à soi, Montréal, 2024 ; collective exhibition Lorsque nos pas crépitent et dansent au son de nos histoires, Biennale POST-INVISIBLES, Montreal, 2024 ; collective exhibition Ya nour ayouni, À la tombée du jour, Galerie Vu Photo, Québec, 2023 ; They wrote the countries borders on my skin, Galerie Fais-moi l’art, Montreal, 2022 ; collective exhibition Ya Nour Ayouni, à la mémoire de nos tétas, Galerie Prospekto, Lituanie, 2020.
Born in France in 1990. Lives and works in Marseille, France.
© Olfa Trabelsi
Fatim Soumaré is a visual artist, researcher and weaver based in the Siin region of Senegal. Her work is rooted in the traditional textile crafts of West Africa, which she discovered through her mother, a traditional dyer. Her artistic practice focuses on socio-cultural and cultural methods of transmitting vernacular knowledge, which she explores through woven sculpture, immersive installations, video and performance.
In 2021, Fatim founded Falé, a collective of 200 craftswomen, and set up a workshop-laboratory dedicated to research on cotton. This initiative examines the transformation of cotton over time, as a common thread for reflections on the divergent transmutations of our modern societies. Fatim's work highlights the importance of maintaining and evolving traditional crafts in contemporary contexts, making a significant contribution to Senegal's rural ecosystem.
Her work has been exhibited in Senegal at IFAN (L'Institut fondamental d'Afrique noire), Dakar, 2023, at the Wellbeing Summit Dakar-Thiès, Centre Culturel Maurice Gueye, 2023 ; at Galerie 19M, Paris, in France in 2023, in Norway, at the Intercultural Museum, Oslo in 2024. She presented a solo show during the 15th Dakar Biennale at Espace Trames in 2024.
Born in 1989 in Senegal. Lives and works in Sine Saloum, Senegal.
© Hani Zurob
Hani Zurob is a contemporary artist who has been living and working in Paris, France since 2006. The artist obtained his BFA from Al-Najah University in Nablus.
In his artwork, Zurob tackles global concepts of identity, place, time and memory with all their complex details that come with the states of suspension, delays, waiting, exile, movement and displacement, absence and resistance. Hani’s oeuvre conjures his personal memories and stories that shaped his life, and, which relate to the events in Palestine and the region with what they hold as complex political and cultural dimensions; and within his topics or concepts, Zurob searches and researches these memories and attempts to understand the effects of deconstructing the relationship between the past and present on himself and on others; thus, His art transcends both borders and geography.
His work can be found in private and public collections internationally such as the British Museum, London; the Arab American National Museum, Michigan; Moderna galerija / Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova (MG+MSUM), Ljubljana, Slovenia; Black Gold Museum, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia ; Williamsburg Art & Historical Center, NY, USA ; Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris ; Association Renoir, Essoyes, France ; Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France ; Mairie de Paris, Paris, France ; Imago Mundi-Luciano Benetton, Treviso, Italy ; Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah, UAE; Dalloul Art Foundation (DAF), Beirut, Lebanon, ; Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman, Jordan. Zurob has won several international awards and residencies, including Bourse et Prix Renoir 2009. Zurob was named one of ten ‘international artists to watch’ in 2013 by The Huffington Post.
Born in 1976 in Rafah Camp, Palestine. Lives and works in Paris, France.
© Isabelle Arthuis
Ismaïl Bahri is primarily a videographer. He sometimes uses drawing, sculpture or installation. He positions himself as an observer, setting up a device to capture gestures and empirical experiences, paying attention to what ‘happens’. His work focuses on the meaning that emerges at the periphery of the gaze, in the presence of the surrounding world that arises and reveals its presence.
Bahri's work has been exhibited at numerous institutions, including the Jeu de Paume and the Centre Pompidou, Paris, France ; La Criée, Rennes, France ; La Verrière, Brussels, Belgium ; Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe, Germany ; Le Forum, Tokyo, Japan and the Beirut Art Center, Beirut, Lebanon. His films have been selected for festivals such as TIFF, Toronto, Canada, NYFF, New York, USA, IFFR, Rotterdam, Netherlands, FID, Marseille, France and Kunstenfenfestivaldesarts, Brussels, Belgium. Ismaïl Bahri was a resident at the Villa Médicis - Académie de France in Rome in 2023 - 2024.
Born in 1978 in Tunisia. Lives and works between Paris, France and Tunis, Tunisia.
© Kan Si
Amadou Kane Sy, alias Kan Si, graduated from the Ecole Nationale des Arts de Dakar in 1991. A multidisciplinary artist, he works in painting, engraving, installation, photography, video and poetry. Socially committed, he was president and co-founder of “Man Keneen-Ki”, an association of artists working to help street children in Dakar.
He is a founding member (alongside Moustapha Dimé, Abdoulaye Ndoye, Fodé Camara, Serigne Mbaye Camara, Cheikh Niass, Jean Marie Bruce and El Hadji Sy) and coordinator of the artists' collective “Huit Facettes Interaction”, which aims to promote activities in rural areas. The collective took part in documenta 11 in Kassel in 2002. Kan Si has organised and participated in numerous international artists' residencies, exhibitions and symposia. In collaboration with the Afro-American artist Muhsana Ali, he founded and coordinated the activities of ‘Portes et Passages du Retour’, an art and holistic development centre in Mbodiene, where Kan Si and Muhsana have welcomed a number of artists and organised workshops and co-creations with local women potters and various members of the Joal-Fadiouth community.
Kan Si participates in numerous personal and collective exhibitions, such as the group show “Borders” at Fondation Gulbenkian, Lisbon, Portugal ; solo shows ‘7x7 FACETTES’ in 1993 and ‘Destructured’ in 1996 at Galerie 39, Centre Culturel Français, Dakar, Senegal; ‘Boulevard Centenaire Made in China’, in 2012 at Raw Material Company, Dakar, Senegal. In 2004, he was awarded a grant from the Ford Foundation (Triangle Art Trust) and in 2003 the City of Dakar Mayor's Prize at the Dakar Biennial. In 2023, he is a recipient of a special grant from the ADAGP (France). He participated in the 8th Dakar Biennial in 2008, in the Rencontres de Bamako, the 9th African Photography Biennial, in 2009 and the Shanghai Biennial in 2012.
Born in 1961 in Senegal. Lives and works between Dakar and Joal, Senegal.
© Lujain Jo
Majd Abdel Hamid is a visual artist from Palestine. He graduated from Malmö Art Academy, Sweden (2010) and attended the International Academy of Art in Palestine (2007-2009).
He works in a broad variety of media, including video, installation, drawing and sculpture, through which he explores themes of national identity and trauma. His artistic practice is rooted in the slow, repetitive, performative gesture, including embroidery and cross-stich on fabric supports, as a counterbalance to high-speed digital image production and pixels.
Majd Abdel Hamid realised numerous solo exhibitions, including “Muscle Memory”, CCA: Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, Scotland ; “800 meters and a corridor”, gb agency, Paris, France (2022) ; “A Stitch in Time”, Fondation d’Entreprise Hermès, Brussels, Belgium curated by Guillaume Desanges (2021). His work has been featured in group exhibitions, including “Memory Sews Together Events That Hadn’t Previously Met”, Sharjah Art Museum, Sharjah, UAE ; “Splendid Isolation”, SMAK, Ghent, Belgium ; “La Beauté du Diable”, Frac Franche-Comté, Besançon, France (2022); “Répare, Reprise”, Cité International des Arts, Paris, France (2021); “Heartbreak”, Ruya Maps, Venice, Italy ; “Touché! (gesture, movement, action)”, BeirutArt Center, Beyrouth, Lebanon (2019); at Krognoshuset Lund in Sweden (2016), the Valencia Institute of Modern Art in Spain and the Halil Saakini Cultural Center in Palestine (2018). He has taken part in several international residencies and workshops, including March Project (Sharjah Art Foundation, 2015), Former West (Berlin, Germany, 2013) and Truth is Concrete (Graz, Austria, 2012). Hamid worked in residence at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris in 2009. He was a finalist for the Young Artist of the Year Award, presented by the A.M. Qattan Foundation, in 2008, 2010, and 2012.
Born in Syria in 1988. Lives and works between Beirut, Lebanon and Ramallah, Palestine.
© Morel Wichédé Sèdami Donou
Mélinda Fourn is a Franco-Beninese artist. Drawing on West African artisanal skills in jewelry, metal, ceramics and weaving, her sculptures and multimedia installations question the social and religious symbolism of everyday tools. She graduated from the Beaux-Arts de Paris (2021) and completed an exchange program at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana (2020).
By documenting ancestral manufacturing techniques in various workshops, she puts herself to the test of learning from craftsmen, reacting in her own way against the risk of disappearance of a heritage threatened by industrialization and the massive import of products. It’s this craft heritage is deeply rooted in the social and urban fabric that interests the artist.
In 2024, she presented her first solo exhibition, “In the palm of the hand”, at Selebe Yoon, Dakar. She participated in several group exhibitions: “Partenaires Particulaires”, at Fondation CAB, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France ; “Entre Parenthèses” and “Vertigineuses”, Selebe Yoon, Dakar; "The Fire of Origins", Biso Biennale, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (2023); "Diversi-T", Kosmokey, La Cité Fertile, Pantin, France (2023); "Intention", Azz-Art, Paris France (2022); "Pièce, Habitation, Abri... ", Musée Delacroix, Paris, France (2022); "Restitution" at the Institut Français, Saint Louis, Senegal (2022); "100% l'Expo", La Villette, France (2022), among others. She has benefited from several residencies, including the ones at Selebe Yoon, Dakar (2023) and Villa Saint-Louis, Ndar (2022) in Senegal, ArtMéssiamé, Lomé, Togo (2021), Green Patch Ceramics, La Borne, France (2021) and Casa Lü, Ttlaplan, Mexico (2019). She was awarded the Residency Prize of the Biso Biennale in Ouagadougou in 2023.
Born in 1995 in France. Lives and works between Dakar, Senegal and Kumasi, Ghana.
© Eunice Maurice
Robert Machiri also known as Chi works with sound and its extent/presence in other mediums such as drawing, installation, photography and moving images. He is a DJ and hoarder of things, inspired by his music collection and interest in sound-related objects. Machiri’s work centres research that is drawn on the aural- interweaving oralscapes with landscapes and cityscapes, as archival forms, as canvases of subjectivity. It considers how alternative epistemologies and imaginaries can be re-centered.
His practice exists at the interface of two streams of approach; his curatorial concepts and a pan-disciplinary production of artworks that draw on decolonial discourses that are presented through embodied critique, learning and unlearning that interweave sound, music and image-making.
His most notable project, PUNGWE, is an interdisciplinary project circling African soundings with related contemporary arts discourses and spaces. Pungwe has produced collaborative works: ‘Pungwe Nights’, ‘Listening at Pungwe’, and ‘Pungwe Soundtrails.
Robert Machiri has presented works with numerous institutions, such as the Blaffer Art Museum - University of Houston, Texas, HKW - Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin. In 2021, he was a fellow at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart which was preceded by another fellowship offered by the DAAD Artist in Berlin Programme in 2022.
Born in 1978 in Zimbabwe. Lives and works in Berlin, Germany.
© Thania Petersen
Thania Petersen embodies the plural histories, spiritualities, sonorities, and cultures of the Afrasiatic Sea. Pivotal to her work is her creole Afro-Asian heritage and the practice of Sufi ceremonies. She views the Oceans as sites of collective memory and traces ancestral routes to present day post-apartheid Cape Town in an attempt to reclaim erased histories and reimagining people from the past stitching them back into existence. Through her collaborative practice working with artisans, musicians and Sufi choirs across Africa and Asia, her work is an invitation to restore lost friendships and breakdown borders created by colonialism, reuniting communities through storytelling, craft, song and spiritual ritual. Drawing on the concept of Sound ecology, her performative and archival work follows the migration of Sufi music over centuries looking to sound as a catalyst towards liberation from the dominant colonial framework, ultimately retelling our history from a place of love and longevity, not violence.
She attempts to unpack contemporary trends of Islamophobia through her analysis of the continuing impact of colonialism, apartheid, European and American imperialism, and the increasing influence of right-wing ideologies. Threads in her work include the history of imperialism in the Global South, as well as the social and cultural impact of westernised consumer culture.
Petersen is represented in various public and private collections including World Cultures Museum Rotterdam (Netherlands), Smithsonian Museum (Washington DC), Oscar Niemeyer Museum Curitiba (Brazil), The Durban Art Gallery, The IZIKO South African National Gallery, Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA), The Kilbourn Collection, The Jochen Zeitz Collection (South Africa), and The Yeojoo City Collection (South Korea).
Born in 1980 in South Africa. Lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa.
CURATOR
An independent curator and writer based in Tunis, Camille Lévy Sarfati focuses her research on practices of resistance or survival that bring together the fields of contemporary art, ritual and politics. She is particularly interested in contemporary practices in North Africa, West Asia and their diasporas, around which she has devised various exhibitions and accompanying programmes. At the same time, she is making a documentary film about the experience of returning home, challenging (ethno)nationalist narratives and conflicting memories linked to Tunisia's Jewish history.
She is the former director of the 32Bis art centre in Tunis. In 2022 and 2023, she curated the exhibitions Can We Sing Together Again, Old Friend? by the South African artist Thania Petersen and Injurier le Soleil at 32bis; as well as the programmes of performances, debates and screenings Ce n'est qu'à la tombée du jour and Je bois le désordre du monde between Paris and Tunis, with the Kadist foundation. In 2024, she collaborated with the Villa Medici in Rome and the Careof art centre in Milan, on the video programmes Ellil al ghadhab li nahlamou (let's dream the night away) and Ya ness essmeou el ghriba (Come and listen to the strange). In 2024, she curated Miss.Tic's first solo exhibition at the Palais des Papes in Avignon, entitled Miss.Tic: À la Vie, à l'amor. Art dans la ville, poétique de la révolte (1985-2022) and the group exhibition Nos douleurs montées sur un soleil comme sur un cheval in Tunis.
She is co-founder of the Tunisian collective Nessij (‘canvas’ in Arabic), which aims to promote the Tunisian art scene internationally, encourage the mobility of artists and art workers, and strengthen solidarity between art scenes, particularly in the South.
Camille Lévy Sarfati will be a fellow at Villa Medici - Académie de France in 2025-2026.
© Bachir Tayachi