PAST EXHIBITIONS

A Declaration of Love in Multiple Shades
by 26 artists in Madagascar
9 October 2021 – 16 March 2022

Curated by
Joël Andrianomearisoa

Hakanto Contemporary
Alhambra Gallery · Ankadimbahoaka
Antananarivo · Madagascar

Ny fitiavanay
Our Love
Notre Amour

Ry Madagasikara soa,
Ny fitiavanay anao tsy miala,
Fa ho anao ho anao doria tokoa.
O our beloved homeland!
O beautiful Madagascar,
Our love for you endures,
And shall endure forever.

In keeping with the tradition of exhibitions at Hakanto Contemporary over the past two years, each project questions its context, History, our present, while invoking the future.
For this new opus — without departing from our customs — we place the focus today on the notion of homeland, of country, of land.
And always, this rhythm of past–present–future as the score of a new musicality.

The land.
We often speak of this red earth, this fragment of country set adrift from a continent, adrift from the ocean, adrift from the world.
We.
We of the great ocean, as Serge Henri Rodin so aptly proclaims.
Madagascar.
The sea all around, and still a great enigma.

Declaration? Questioning? Love? Distance? Independence?
The aim is not to provide answers, but rather to draw an emotional assessment through multidisciplinary expressions.
Actions in black and white, to the assertion of a flag without colour.
Hearts torn open to pour forth the ink of hope.
A love song rising from religious effluvia.
Or a family dish transformed into fireworks born of our pain.
The responses are many — sometimes in dialogue, at other times in confrontation, or in tension.

An Act of Love — Ny fitiavanay
Here, then, is a declaration of love in multiple shades, offered by 26 Malagasy artists to this cherished land.
26 voices speaking for 60.
26 artists.
60 years of independence.
How do we inhabit the present with such an anniversary?
How do we undo History?

Rewrite histories.
And how do we narrate the future?
To remake one’s history,
To rewrite one’s memory,
To cast off moorings,
To change one’s roots,
And to build, build, again and again.
— Michèle Rakotoson

Ny tena sy fo fanahy anananay
Our body, our heart and our soul.
A melody that resonates, allowing hearts and souls to speak freely.
Yes, let us speak — for the time has come.

Joël Andrianomearisoa
September 2021

Ry Tanindrazanay malala ô (O Our Beloved Homeland / O Land of Our Dear Ancestors)
has been the national anthem of Madagascar since 1958.
It was written by Pastor Rahajason and composed by Norbert Raharisoa (1913–1963).