- Blackground : murmures des mornes
12.06.2026 – 03.01.27
The practices of the artists gathered in this exhibition seek to expand the forms that memory can take, to highlight and occupy the “lacks” of official history, but also to create from gestures and traces of resistance. They start from the postulate that the world in which we live cannot be understood without this blackground, a black background that resists within the very history of domination. Their works lead us to listen to the songs, screams and whispers that come from the dreary, spaces of browning, refuge and community, while refusing the spectacle of violence.
The Blackground project: murmurs of the dreary unfolds in several stages. First by a set of exhibitions at the Capc Museum of Contemporary Art in Bordeaux, at the Frac MÉCA, at the Mériadeck Library and at the Musée d'Aquitaine. In these institutions, each collective exhibition responds to the particular context in which it is part: the Capc asks the question of the plantation and the monument from its inscription in a former warehouse of colonial food; at FRAC Meca, it is the view of the Garonne that generates a reflection on and through water; at the Mériadeck Library, it is the writings of Maryse Condé, Angela Davis and Suzanne Roussi-Césaire that form a core of reflection on language2; and finally, at the Musée d'Aquitaine, works infiltrate the permanent course to offer points of Escape to official history.
Later in the year, at Zébra3 and then at the Archives de Bordeaux Métropole, the artist Simon Gabourg is invited to develop a two-stage project that starts from a reflection on the history of rubber cultivation, between Guadeloupe, France and Vietnam.
1. Translation of the expression 'afterlives of slavery' by American academic Saidiya Hartman.
2. This project is a cover and adaptation of Correspondances. Read Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison who was held at Crédac in Ivry-sur-Seine in 2024 and whose curators were Claire Le Restif and Elvan Zabunyan.
Artists: Annabelle Agbo Godeau, Mathieu Kleyebe Subscriber, Malala Andrialavidrazana, Tania Arancia Marie, Jordan Beal, Yassine Ben Abdallah, Minia Biabiany, Hannah Black, Shirley Bruno, Kenny Cairo, Chimurenga, Gaëlle Choisne, Julien Creuzet, Danielle Dean, Caroline Deodat, Boz Deseo Garden, Inès Di Folco Jemni, Binta Diaw, Ayoh Kré Duchâtelet, Kenny Dunkan, Lucas Erin, Alexandre Erre, Pap Souleye Fall, Simon Gabourg, Dan Guthrie, Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich, Audrey & Maxime Jean-Baptiste, Rudy Kanhye, Belinda Kazem-Kaminski, Iris Kensmil, Ligia Lewis, Jota Mombaça, Shaun Motsi, Moye, Nathalie Muchamad, Ina Nian, Josèfa Ntjam, Olu O Rezgui, Xavier Robles De Medina, Fanny Souade Sow, Dominique White.
Other places: Frac MÉCA, Musée d'Aquitaine, Bibliothèque Mériadeck, Zébra3, Archives Bordeaux Métropole
Partners: FABA Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz Picasso, Fluxus art projects, Casden, EVL Echafaudages Groupe Vahau, Smurfit Westrock, Pro Helvetia, Foundation for the Memory of Slavery, Crédac.
This exhibition is part of the Pôle International de Production et de Diffusion (PIPD) - Écotone, carried out by the Frac Nouvelle-Aquitaine MÉCA, the Centre d'art contemporain d'Ivry - the Crédac & the Capc - Musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux, and receives the support of the Ministry of Culture.
Exhibition views of Blackground : murmures des mornes, Capc Muséed’art contemporain, Bordeaux (12.06.2026 – 03.01.27). Curators Cédric Fauq and Salma Mochtari. Photos by Arthur Péquin