Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris

The Power of My Hands Afrique(s) : artistes femmes

As part of the Africa2020 Season, Angola-based freelance curator Suzana Sousa and Odile Burluraux, curator at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, have chosen for exhibition at MAM a group of works by sixteen women artists from various English - and Portuguese - speaking African countries or the diaspora. The result is an insight into an African contemporary art scene rarely presented in France.

The Power of My Hands tells us how artists can use their personal histories to address the social issues that govern the condition of women today. Examining a range of themes – the body, sexuality, self-representation, motherhood, beliefs – the exhibition asks how, for Black women, attitudes to privacy reveal what goes unsaid and their relationship with the world. It does this via an intermingling of the notions of memory, family, spirituality and imagination.

The works on display – including paintings, pottery, photographs, videos, performances and needlework – celebrate the liberating energy of the «power of their hands».