The Second Season of Hakanto Contemporary
17 May – 16 November 2025

Curated by
Joël Andrianomearisoa

Hakanto Contemporary
ZFI · Ankadimbahoaka
Antananarivo · Madagascar

SENTIMENTAL

SENTIMENTAL, a new season at Hakanto Contemporary.
A new breath, an unprecedented promise.
Another chapter, another time…
an exercise towards a new sensation.

SENTIMENTAL
A dark film imprinting itself upon courageous hearts.
Endless words under the glow of a trembling sun.
A mysterious fabric, wrapping present destinies in the wind.
A muffled whisper attempting a rebirth.
A sombre breeze that fractures time,
and our souls that waver without restraint.

SENTIMENTAL
A conversation with time, yet belonging to no temporality.
An intimate subject, and at once a universal one.
A vivid effect that endlessly tries its luck with eternity.
A monologue that exists only through the other.
A story without geography, yet deeply rooted within each of us. For yes —
WE ARE ALL SENTIMENTAL.
And here, today, it matters that we speak of sentimentality.

Here, at Hakanto Contemporary,
we propose to open the debate on this very question:
being Malagasy, and being sentimental.
Malagasy sentimentality — seen, revisited and reinterpreted by some twenty artists.
Malagasy artists, from the most vibrant to the most forgotten,
from the most baroque to the most precise,
from the present to yesterday,
from the fully formed artist to the one still becoming.

Here, the artists — all of them — open a discussion
where certainty waltzes with doubt.
Without drama: perhaps this is how sentimentality is played out in Malagasy culture.
In a past brilliance, one merely brushes against it.
At dusk, after so much hardship, one finally dares.
Dialogues of an impermanent no with a softly whispered yes.
To speak sentimentally is no simple matter on this land.

So the protagonists seek stratagems to refine the play.
Feelings are stolen at street corners, with violence yet without passion.
Provocation dons the airs of timidity.
Sated lips kiss only the canvases of lost affections. The unspoken asserts itself in full truth. The body disguises itself as an object of memory. Straw ignites tenderly beneath the fires of imagined adventures. Seduction replays the film of disappointment. Pain conjugates itself within the score of rapture. Money hums the finest flavour of desire. Rituals unfold without love songs. A hand lets its caress glide over the anatomy of a certain possible.

These forms and propositions may appear rather dark, given the delicacy of the subject.
Yet this tragic note is surely here to awaken within each of us — Malagasy or not — the essential place of sentimentality in our lives. The force of desire. The desire for sentiment — for everything.
For a wholly SENTIMENTAL way of living. 

Joël Andrianomearisoa
May 2025

A Monographic Exhibition
by Joël Andrianomearisoa
12 April – 18 May 2025

Curated by
Rina Ralay-Ranaivo

Hakanto Contemporary
Alhambra Gallery · Ankadimbahoaka
Antananarivo · Madagascar

Please Sing Me My Song Before You Go
is Joël Andrianomearisoa’s first exhibition at Hakanto Contemporary.
It unfolds around a cinematic work of the same title — the artist’s first film — commissioned by IFA Gallery and premiered in Berlin in 2024 as part of the exhibition Measures, Lullabies and Whispers.

Working across multiple forms of expression and manipulating a wide range of media, Joël Andrianomearisoa weaves his practice through an array of materials: metal, textile, paper, words — and now image and sound. His film Please Sing Me My Song Before You Go is an intimate and melancholic work, drawing on the resonances of a fragmented memory, haunted by the echo of a lullaby, Iny Hono Izy Ravorombazaha. Passed down through generations, this melody is itself inspired by the traditional tale Imaitsoanala: a story of rupture and flight, in which the giant bird Ravorombe opposes the union of his human daughter with her beloved, triggering an odyssey of escape and an ode to the longing for freedom.

Here, however, the lullaby is not merely a song of comfort. It becomes a song of surrender. Joël Andrianomearisoa subverts the gentleness of the refrain to reveal its underlying tear: that of departure, renunciation, and the gradual erasure of the other. Through an abstract mise-en-scène, he captures the remnants of presence — the memory of a first encounter, the slow encroachment of silence, leading ultimately to the abdication of bodies.

The obsessive rhythm of the lullaby becomes a living matter within the film, a pulse oscillating between mourning and hope. In this movement between the personal and the universal, the film does more than tell a story: it becomes a space, a threshold where surrender turns into a whisper, where absence is inscribed in image, and where the song endures, suspended in time.

From this sense of abandonment, Joël Andrianomearisoa also unfolds other aesthetic forms and languages throughout the exhibition, through a series of additional installations, including works that explore accumulation and repetition as attempts to fix memory and question forgetting.
First, a series of display cases housing flickering candles, slowly consuming their own light. The wax melts, solidifies and accumulates within the glass, leaving behind silent imprints of time slipping away. A fragile presence, a memory in the making.
This scene inevitably evokes a familiar landscape: the streets of Antananarivo at nightfall. Ephemeral makeshift stalls where the discreet glow of candles illuminates the precarious stands of street vendors — a fleeting light accompanying passers-by returning home or night wanderers surrendering to the darkness.

Inspired by minimalist art** — a movement associated with major figures such as Donald Judd (1928–1994), renowned for his geometric sculptures in metal and Plexiglas — this installation reinterprets an everyday ritual, elevating it to the realm of poetry.
This is followed by an installation of four hundred aluminium plates, rising like a constellation of memories. Evoking commemorative plaques, they inscribe into metal the echo of a presence, the weight of a memory frozen in matter. Echoing earlier works currently on view at the Fondation Zinsou in Benin — La Promesse de la Terre, an accumulation of earthen plates, and Le Miroir de la Terre, an accumulation of mica plates — Joël Andrianomearisoa renders tangible, through materiality, the testimony of time following separation, ensuring that the imprint of the past endures and that memory does not slip into oblivion.

In this same pursuit of preserving traces, the artist extends the gesture by scattering the imprints of his own hand throughout the exhibition space. On canvases impregnated with black oil, he leaves a mark that is both intimate and universal — a silent dialogue between presence and erasure, between body and memory, between what remains and what eludes us.

Finally, with this exhibition by Joël Andrianomearisoa, Hakanto Contemporary will permanently close its first exhibition site at Alhambra Gallery, Ankadimbahoaka, after five years of activity and programming, in order to fully invest its new space within the Filatex Industrial Zone. The artist thus marks this final chapter with a highly symbolic gesture — a last resonance, an imprint before silence — extending the story of this foundational and historic site, witness to so many creations and dialogues.

Rina Ralay-Ranaivo
March 2025

An exhibition
co-produced with Kantoko
in partnership with Filatex Properties
with the support of the Fonds Yavarhoussen

A Monographic Exhibition
by Benjamin Loyauté
23 November 2024 – 2 March 2025

Curated by
Rina Ralay-Ranaivo
Scientific Advisor
Bako Rasoarifetra

Hakanto Contemporary
Alhambra Gallery · Ankadimbahoaka
Antananarivo · Madagascar

FOUR SEASONS,
the first monographic exhibition by Benjamin Loyauté in Madagascar, was presented at Hakanto Contemporary.
Conceived as a deep immersion into the artist’s universe, the exhibition was informed by his most recent creative experiences in Madagascar, as well as by a recontextualisation of the outcomes of his years of collaboration with Ndao Hanavao, a project supported by Rubis Mécénat.

For this first presentation of his work in Madagascar, invoking the four seasons led Benjamin Loyauté to attune himself to the multiple realities of an agricultural territory and of communities whose daily lives, present and future have long been shaped by circumstances and meteorological phenomena.

Curated by Rina Ralay-Ranaivo, with scientific advice from Bako Rasoarifetra, FOUR SEASONS offered an aesthetic exploration of the effects of climate change on Madagascar, particularly on its agricultural communities, for whom the land occupies a central place — both as a means of subsistence and as a site of symbolic and cultural value.
Through video works, installations and sculptures, Benjamin Loyauté examined the role of art as a vector of balance in a world undergoing profound transformation.

The artist revisited the four seasons in symbiosis with Malagasy realities, creating a dialogue between tradition and modernity, between nature and technology.
Through his encounters, research and creative processes in Madagascar, Benjamin Loyauté discovered the traditional Malagasy bead — a cultural emblem imbued with strong symbolic significance, conceived and consecrated as a blessing for its bearer.

Aware of the challenges faced by Malagasy communities — notably the impacts of climate change and the human exploitation of natural resources — Benjamin Loyauté’s reflection deepened through his encounters and the insights gained from his research.

In collaboration with the workshops of Ndao Hanavao, Benjamin Loyauté created Voa ary, a bead made from recycled plastic and sacralised through a traditional ritual. The bead Voa ary stands as a tribute to these landscapes, to these encounters, and to the richness of a culture that has long cherished the intangible and the immaterial. It also embodies a wish for protection and vitality for these communities.

Benjamin Loyauté is known for his multidisciplinary practice, which questions perception and cultural heritage. With FOUR SEASONS, he highlighted ancestral Malagasy practices, particularly those surrounding the bead — a symbolic object that he has fully integrated into his artistic inquiry.

The exhibition was supported by Rubis Mécénat, with the collaboration of Ndao Hanavao.

The First Season of Hakanto Contemporary
14 September 2024 – 13 April 2025

Curated by
Joël Andrianomearisoa
Rina Ralay-Ranaivo

Hakanto Contemporary
ZFI · Ankadimbahoaka
Antananarivo · Madagascar

ONE SEASON, ONE THEME
This opening marks an opportunity for Hakanto Contemporary to introduce the new structure of its artistic programme.
Each season offers the public four types of exhibitions, presented in parallel and united by a shared theme:
THE MAIN EXHIBITION, addressing the chosen theme through major monographic or large-scale group exhibitions;
THE DISCOVERY / REDISCOVERY SPACE, dedicated to the work of a historical or contemporary artist;
THE COLLECTION SPACE, presenting a selection of works from the Hasnaine Yavarhoussen Collection, in dialogue with the season’s theme;
BEYOND BORDERS, showcasing an international artist or project, emerging or established, beyond the conventional art world.

HISTOIRES DE FAMILLE
After four years of presence here in Antananarivo,
Hakanto Contemporary now unfolds on this new terrain, reaffirming our commitment to Madagascar — and above all, to artists.
A new setting, allowing greater space for emotion despite uncertain times.
A larger space, enabling artists to express their desires and convictions.
As part of this expansion, we are also inaugurating new approaches:
the creation of Hakanto Studio, a dedicated space for workshops;
an area devoted to conversations, Resaka Hakanto;
a new Hakanto Shop;
Hakanto Contemporary also becomes a publisher through Hakanto Edition;
and above all, a new programme structured in the form of seasons.

The inaugural season, HISTOIRES DE FAMILLE, unfolded through six exhibitions with diverse tones and voices:
THE GRIEF, a sound exhibition by Aude Onivola Rajaona, in which she summons family memories, from a birthday celebration to a fara-veloma (final farewell).
LE CORPS DES VOLANTS À SIX ÉTAGES, the first monographic exhibition in Madagascar by Jessy Razafimandimby, transporting us through his multiple visions — fianakaviana fendrofendro sa ve ampinga paradisa ? (are family ties fragmented, or the first bulwark of personal fulfilment?).
AVEC ELLES, the first solo exhibition by Alexandre Gourçon, drawing on the legacy of his two grandmothers, and above all on local asa tanana (craftsmanship).
MOTHER, a conversation between Asma Ben Aissa and Elie Ramanankavana, reflecting on the figure of the mother — Mama a!
THIS IS MY HOME, a selection of works from the Yavarhoussen Collection: an intimate and imaginary vocabulary of a house without geography, except that of lightness.
And to conclude, JOELY SY ANDY, an unprecedented dialogue between Andy Warhol and Joely, our Malagasy spokesperson of the contemporary moment.

An inaugural cycle that questions the notion of family —
as a life force and a source of inspiration,
but at times also as a weight in the expansion of being.
May Hakanto Contemporary continue to breathe upon our hearts,
and above all, into our present time.

Joël Andrianomearisoa
Hasnaine Yavarhoussen
2024

The First Monographic Exhibition of Daniel Rakotoseheno
known as Dany Be (1935–2021)
Pioneer of photojournalism in Madagascar
4 May – 26 October 2024

Curated by
Rina Ralay-Ranaivo · Jean Loup Pivin
with the close collaboration of Rado Rakotoseheno

Hakanto Contemporary
Alhambra Gallery · Ankadimbahoaka
Antananarivo · Madagascar

This exhibition brought together 168 photographs by the artist, most of them previously unseen. We chose not to separate Dany Be’s professional commitment as a journalist from his photographic practice, but rather to place these two dimensions of his work in dialogue.
On the one hand, series of images directly referenced specific contexts and fields — such as politics, social life, sport and leisure; on the other, they expressed the photographer’s gaze on places and spaces, situations and circumstances across the Grande Île, in both urban and rural areas, and even in remote regions.

Dany Be’s photographs conveyed the sense of proximity he maintained with his environment. Working within a humanist aesthetic, he captured moments and scenes of everyday life, produced portraits of people he knew as well as anonymous figures encountered by chance — or simply seized the spirit of the times.

His images froze time several decades ago, immersing us in major historical events that have punctuated Madagascar’s political, economic, social and cultural trajectory since Independence in 1960.
Moreover, Dany Be’s extensive address book and professional network enabled him to be present at the heart of decisive moments — during protest movements, periods of upheaval, and times of transition.

Interwoven with his personal narrative — marked by the challenges he encountered in the course of his work as a photojournalist — this body of work, whose aesthetic can be linked to the great currents of humanist photography, demonstrates how Dany Be’s destiny often ran parallel to that of his country, making him an exceptional witness to History.

Dany Be was acutely aware that the modern history of Madagascar was often overlooked by younger generations. In this context, and in coherence with his lifelong struggle for freedom of opinion and expression, the transmission of knowledge to youth became one of his major concerns, particularly from mid-life onwards.

He was also one of the leading figures in the professional life of Malagasy photographers. In the late 1990s, he committed himself, alongside Revue Noire, to producing the first works on the history of Malagasy photography, together with Pierrot Men and Émile Rakotondrazaka (known as Ramily).
We salute the trust and active collaboration of Dany Be’s family, without whom this exhibition would not have been possible.

Highlighting Dany Be’s artistic, social and political engagement constituted the first major tribute to his photographic œuvre.

Rina Ralay-Ranaivo
Jean Loup Pivin
April 2024

Excerpt from the text Dany Be, What a Wonderful World

A Monographic Exhibition by Mialy Razafintsalama
6 January 2024 – 20 April 2024

Curated by
Joël Andrianomearisoa
Samuel Ramaholimihaso

Hakanto Contemporary
Alhambra Gallery · Ankadimbahoaka
Antananarivo · Madagascar

Sedran’ny tany

As part of Hakanto Contemporary’s renewed reflection on the theme Patriotic Land and Ecological Land, we wished to give an artist the floor — through images — to express her emotions and ideas around this question. Enter Mialy Razafintsalama, a photographer with a singular voice, presenting a new series entitled Sedran’ny tany (The Trials of the Land), a special commission conceived along a journey from Antananarivo to Toliara, with the collaboration and support of Filatex Énergie.

Fa iza moa ianao ry Tany? Land — who are you? Our first conversation with Mialy Razafintsalama was, above all, an exercise in persuasion: inviting her to speak about the land — her land. Yes, speaking of patriotism is always difficult, and engaging with ecology is even more complex in today’s world, where every action must be weighed, measured and assessed.

Yet
Mialy Razafintsalama responded with a playful gaze, subverting preconceptions and playing between the lines of the notion of land — in her words, and even more so in her images. Her photographic proposal is structured around a duality in which she weighs the pros and cons, the question and sometimes the answer, yes and no, black and white — but above all, the colours of life.

The journey begins in Antananarivo, follows the southern road of Madagascar, and extends as far as Toliara. Along the way, she gathers a land that burns, that converses with solar panels announcing a more hopeful future. A marine horizon in Mangily questions the limits of land when confronted with a thermal power plant. A hopeful cactus blooms before the window of Isalo, opening onto the promise of a radiant tomorrow.
…

The work presented is a heartfelt outpouring — a way of questioning her own senses, while also calling upon the viewer to engage with a question that may have no solution: Patriotic Land and Ecological Land.

Amid these words, let us find the response: Irin’ny tany, sarin’ny tany, fofon’ny tany, feon’ny tany, endrin’ny tany, hiran’ny tany, tsiron’ny tany, sedran’ny tany… sy ireo tarainan’ny tany rehetra.
The desires of the land, the images of the land, the scents of the land, the voices of the land, the appearances of the land, the songs of the land, the flavours of the land, the trials of the land — and all the cries of the land.
Let us not attempt to understand each photograph.
Let us turn the pages and seek the words in between.
Between times, between airs, between lands.

Joël Andrianomearisoa
Samuel Ramaholimihaso
2024

A Group Exhibition
6 January – 20 April 2024

Curated by
Joël Andrianomearisoa

Hakanto Contemporary
Alhambra Gallery · Ankadimbahoaka
Antananarivo · Madagascar

Reveries with the Taste of Earth
Tena manembona izany tsiron’ny tany izany aho.
Ary tena mamy izany akora vokatrin’ny tany izany!
Let us bring our voices together around the Earth — the Earth as mother, the Earth as homeland, the Earth as earth. Let taste become a universal principle for conversation.
The taste of my land, motherland, our land — like a dream.

LA NOUVELLE TERRE (The New Earth). A conversational exhibition centred on the notion of Patriotic Land and Ecological Land. A proposition shaped in close collaboration with five artists — young in age, yet powerful in their commitments: Amir Juvara Andrianalitiana (Amir.J) · Joëlle Aresoa (Joey Aresoa) · Aina Jo Harimanjato (Jo Aina) · Richianny Raherinjatovo (Richianny Ratovo) · Mbolatiana Raoilison (Clipse Teean).

Patriotic Land, Ecological Land.
Difficult to separate these two notions — so let us sway within the in-between. A land we mould to shape the pottery of the future. A land torn between affection and desolation. A land pulled towards modernity, yet surviving in the fragility of the present. A land that cries out in pain, yet perhaps sketches the birth of a new day. Yes, we must care for our (native) land — but how? With which tools? And how, when the world itself is sometimes no more than an illusion?

It is within this wave of uncertainty that the invited artists position their gazes and their works.
Uncertainty, yet unwavering conviction — for the truth of the land resides in their hearts, in the intimacy of their souls and in the making of their works.

From daylight water to nightfall light. Richianny Raherinjatovo leads us through a delicate and disorienting labyrinth. She transports us into a world of illusion, between the earth of the maternal womb and the formidable underground of the storm — yet always, at the end, light; always, hope. Painting scratches the glass, and attitude defies the moods.

Earth, when you hold us. Joëlle Aresoa invites us into the memory of her native land, extending towards newly imagined geographies. With her voice, she carries us into an emotional musicality between the hiakan’ny tany (the cries of the land) and her memories. Upon a table unfolds the cartographic inventory of her own existence.

Fire Party. Driven by a multitude of desires, Aina Jo Harimanjato is an artist of fire, igniting us through the pulsating rhythm of his productions. Videos, sounds, performances, garments, painting — the list is long. Here and now, he chooses to move his entire home into the exhibition space, sharing his most intimate vision of patriotism. In this house, the party never ends… and our land becomes a real dancefloor.
Kilalao Mainty, or the Black Game. Amir Juvara Andrianalitiana presents, for the first time, a new installation in which deep, sombre black — yet always joyful — emerges as a glimmer of ecological hope. Charred wood reveals luminous green, while on the walls his hand traces lines of life. Yes — we are very much alive!

Gone with the Wind. “To seek the thing” — such is the guiding principle of Mbolatiana Raoilison’s proposition. Between walls, between skies, between the land, she invites us to capture the elusive wind that blows across the terrain of all our emotions. Trompe-l’œil or illusion? We are the solution.

In a humble and sincere tone, these five artists offer us their visions of the Earth.
A playground that remains an enigma — but one certainty remains: we must care for it.
With gentleness. With attention. With tenderness.

Joël Andrianomearisoa
Rina Ralay-Ranaivo
2024

A Group Exhibition
8 July – 25 November 2023

Curated by
Joël Andrianomearisoa
Ludonie Velotrasina
Rina Ralay-Ranaivo

Hakanto Contemporary
Alhambra Gallery · Ankadimbahoaka
Antananarivo · Madagascar

This exhibition reveals a plurality of artistic approaches and a diversity of aesthetics. The artists brought together here all share a connection with the lamba — at times an object of fascination, at others of experimentation, imagination, or even fantasy.

Material, weaving and emotion: this thread that runs through time and across all Malagasy geographies emerges as a powerful aesthetic subject — a breath of life and a source of inspiration.

While photographer Kevin Ramarohetra confirms, through his images, the omnipresence of the lamba in the everyday life of the Malagasy capital, painters Émile Ralambo and Jean-Yves Chen sublimate this enduring relationship with textile from different perspectives within their respective practices.

In other propositions, the lamba becomes a disorienting process. Madame Zo, whose weaving practice is fuelled by a series of experiments, confronts us with an assemblage of VHS tapes transformed into furniture. The thread of film thus traverses another temporality. Facing the armchair, Joël Andrianomearisoa and Madame Zo, in a joint installation presented for the first time in Madagascar, affirm that the textile lamba is a game of impossible desire — like a life in which the heel pierces the mirror, all the way to the thread that clings to the remnants of intoxication.

The technical dimension is explored in the work of Sandra Ramiliarisoa, produced in polyfloss. Her piece illustrates an endless enumeration of practices of twisting, weaving and knotting.

In a more conceptual register, the bemiray feeds the practice of Tsiriniaina Irimboangy in his installation Sombin-tantara, which brings together elements of his research on the lamba, driven by the vivid memory of his grandmother wearing it according to Malagasy tradition.

For his part, Gad Bensalem presents an installation that becomes a way of calling upon the absent or deceased father. The actor deconstructs the lamba and pulls at its thread to recount the story of young Doda in his search for identity, revisiting the memory of the women who raised him and of the father he never knew.

Still within this familial register, yet through an architectural approach, visual artist Nadia Randriamorasata retraces her genealogy and reconnects with the history of her origins in the creation of her work. She chooses to erect a set of architectural forms as a tribute to her family figures — particularly those on her paternal side — who now belong to the world of the ancestors.

The photographs of Christian Sanna proclaim that textile can be both a garment of sensuality and an object of ritual adornment, while the video work of choreographer and dancer Nazaria Tooj expresses the idea of rebirth.

Here again, geography loses its relevance. H. Ranaivo exhumes the traditional shroud and transforms it into a tailor of life. Christian Lacroix allows himself to be embroidered by Malagasy hands. Clée Rabeharisoa and Charlotte Razafindrakoto, following their respective experiences at Christian Dior and Balmain, dress the high society of the central highlands. In resonance with these textile creations, the elegance of the figures wearing the lamba, photographed by Ramilijaona and Rasolonjatovo, bears witness to a form of sophistication rooted in this sartorial tradition.

Beyond formal exercises, the lamba emerges as a whisper to our souls.
As proof, writer Jean-Luc Raharimanana weaves his memory, thoughts and states of mind through his novels, short stories and essays. Far from the literary work one might have expected, the author presents, for the first time, a series of original drawings taken from his notebooks.

Joël Andrianomearisoa
2023

A Group Exhibition
3 September – 22 October 2022

Curated by
Joël Andrianomearisoa
Rina Ralay-Ranaivo

Hakanto Contemporary
Alhambra Gallery · Ankadimbahoaka
Antananarivo · Madagascar

Like fleeting words on a blackboard, The New Hand is the hesitant beginning of four young Malagasy voices.
Are they artists, or not? Will they become artists?
These are the questions raised — this is the intrigue.
Here, however, the question is not about becoming an artist, but rather about revealing their commitment to creation, their desire to project themselves into the forms of today or tomorrow, in the beautiful carefreeness of youth.

At Hakanto Contemporary, we are proud to introduce to the public four young artists — emerging figures of the new Malagasy contemporary scene — through monumental and original works produced especially for this exhibition.
Fitiavana Ratovo, Andy Rasoloharivony, Sanka and Rose Kely Ranarivelo first took part in workshops organised by Hakanto Contemporary. These encounters are regularly held to encourage dialogue and exchange between artists from different disciplines — and above all, to reveal new energies.

Conceived as spaces for discussion and collective reflection, these meetings not only made it possible to identify the four artists presented here, but also to accompany them in shaping their creative ideas. At this stage of their journeys, all four are still engaged in a process of exploration. They continue to test aesthetic possibilities through — and beyond — their own media, experimenting with other materials and forms. The specific support offered in preparation for this exhibition placed particular emphasis on the importance of maintaining this openness within each of their practices.

From the outset, these young artists are driven by a desire to move forward, to cross new thresholds in their momentum. They seek new directions for their work, to nourish it and open it up to fresh perspectives. These artists-in-the-making strive to step outside their own comfort zones — their habits, even their solitude. And despite the uncertainty surrounding the path they have chosen, they remain steadfast. The urge to experiment, to express oneself, or simply to exist, takes precedence over all else, resonating here in every gesture, proposition and material.

Image, metal, terracotta, textile, paper — materials intertwine in a play of dialogue, contrast and confrontation. They reflect a form of plurality that finds its point of convergence in the intentions of the works, all nourished by personal histories and individual social experiences. This is perhaps what gives early works their particular charm, and what defines the strength of these young artists’ pieces in particular: they present themselves to the world as self-portraits of their makers.

In the specific case of these installations, the strength of each proposal lies in its sense of balance and precision — for there is no exercise more perilous than speaking of oneself and one’s own universe, faced with the dilemma of form and representation.

Drawing on her family history, Rose Kely Ranarivelo reinterprets, through her piece, a moment she holds dear: Tsarasaotra. Using multiple media — including ceramics, wood and painting — the artist abstractly reconstructs, on a dreamlike table, the elements of this familial moment. Inspired by the essences of her dual Franco-Malagasy culture, her arrangements resonate with cultural and social references of taste and aesthetic sensibility.

To create his work, Fitiavana Ratovo appropriated a construction principle encountered in everyday life. This series of sculpted metal sheets, hung like a gallery of portraits, represents members of a community sharing the same vision, the same values, and projecting the same future. Iray lalana — literally “sharing the same path” — resonates as a wish for a collective awakening within a society in crisis.

Through the force of material and the power of image, Andy Rasoloharivony invites the viewer into a church to experience The Urgency of Faith. In a striking play of contrasts, the video artist presents powerful symbols of Christian faith within a construction-site setting. Natural daylight filtering into this mystical and sacred space brings the experience to its climax.

Sanka, for her part, presents a first work that highlights her long experience as a portrait draughtswoman. The piece is composed of a series of original portraits alongside their reproductions. Through this installation, which plunges us into the depth and intensity of the gaze — the window of the soul — the artist recalls her beginnings in drawing: at the age of four, a tender memory linked to her mother and primary school. The work returns her to the moment of first gestures and to the dream of becoming an artist.

La nouvelle main, — a sketch of an uncertain future, yet carried by the certainty of four young hopes and their desire to make, to shape, and to fabricate their own time.

Joël Andrianomearisoa
Rina Ralay-Ranaivo
September 2022

A Selection of Exceptional Works
from the Revue Noire Collection
26 November 2022 – 6 May 2023

Curated by
Jean Loup Pivin
Pascal Martin Saint Leon

Hakanto Contemporary
Alhambra Gallery · Ankadimbahoaka
Antananarivo · Madagascar

A photograph of a performance by Joël Andrianomearisoa appeared on the cover of the Madagascar issue of Revue Noire in 1997 — a powerful symbol, renewed in 2022 with the exhibition ESPRIT REVUE NOIRE · A FOUNDATIONAL COLLECTION, presented here at Hakanto Contemporary in Antananarivo, more than twenty years later.

The magazine, publishing house and production platform were founded in 1990 by Jean Loup Pivin and Pascal Martin Saint Leon (both architects, artistic directors and curators), Simon Njami (writer and curator), and Bruno Tilliette (publisher and writer).

An investigative magazine dedicated to contemporary African expressions and a defining force of the 1990s and 2000s, Revue Noire offered a new and previously unseen image of the vitality of creation, modernity, and the abundance of African arts and artists, both on the continent and within the diaspora. Distributed worldwide, the bilingual international review — French/English — played a decisive role in the history of contemporary African art, revealing numerous artists across disciplines: visual arts, photography, cinema, dance, fashion, design, as well as literature, by bringing forward a new generation of writers.

Its role was pioneering in the field of contemporary African art, and particularly in the recognition of African photography. The exhibition presented in Antananarivo originates from the exhibition Africa by Itself, which travelled from Paris (Maison Européenne de la Photographie) to São Paulo (Biennale), Washington (Smithsonian), New York (New Museum of Contemporary Art), London (Barbican), Brussels (Tervuren), Cape Town and Berlin. The accompanying publication, Anthology of African Photography, the Indian Ocean and the Diaspora (1998), together with each issue of Revue Noire, thus laid the first cornerstone of a history of African photography.

In the Madagascar issue of 1997, nearly twenty Malagasy photographers were published. Today, the Revue Noire exhibition in Antananarivo naturally focuses on the history of African photography through 140 photographs, almost entirely composed of original prints and vintage works. Videos produced by Revue Noire are screened, while the complete collection of Revue Noire publications is displayed, allowing visitors to fully engage with the Revue Noire approach.

Published quarterly, each issue offers a panorama shaped by an editorial committee established on site, country by country. Other issues address more specific themes, linked to a discipline — photography, dance, fashion — or to social realities such as the city, food culture, or AIDS, which ravaged the continent. Committed to this struggle for survival, Revue Noire produced in 1995 — at a time when no treatment yet existed — African Artists and AIDS, comprising an issue of Revue Noire, films by African filmmakers, a CD, and a broadcast programme aired on African television channels.

This “global” body of work by Revue Noire is fully in keeping with the spirit of its founders. It could already be seen in the exhibition African Suites, presented in Paris in 1996, where visual artists, dancers, photographers, writers and performers were brought together in a vibrant space of free circulation and encounter.

Today, the publishing house continues its programme of publications and exhibitions, most recently in Toulouse at the Musée des Abattoirs, presenting the many facets of Revue Noire through publishing, art, photography, music and video. It is in this same spirit that the exhibition at Hakanto Contemporary was conceived.

Jean Loup Pivin
Pascal Martin Saint Leon
November 2022

A Monographic Exhibition of
Émile Rakotondrazaka, known as Ramily (1939–2017)
Between retrospective, emotion and tribute
30 April – 30 July 2022

Curated by
Joël Andrianomearisoa
Ludonie Velotrasina

Hakanto Contemporary
Alhambra Gallery · Ankadimbahoaka
Antananarivo · Madagascar

Between Retrospective, Emotion and Tribute

Ramily — affectionately known as Dadamily — is the father of contemporary Malagasy black-and-white photography. This exhibition unfolds as a space-time devoted to the genius of a photographer: the pioneer of modern black-and-white photography and an exceptional darkroom master.

Born on 25 September 1939 in the Antohomadinika district of Antananarivo, his work began to shape the cultural landscape from the very first decades following Madagascar’s independence.

An icon of photography, Ramily remains a benchmark for silver gelatin printing in medium and large formats. His work reached its peak from the 1970s through to the late 1990s. He ended his career in 2003, the year he suffered a heart attack. Ramily passed away on 26 March 2017 in Antananarivo, leaving behind hundreds of poetic landscapes, meticulously crafted prints, iconic black-and-white photographs of weddings and ceremonial events, and above all an extraordinary passion for photography, generously shared with younger generations of photographers.
To rediscover — and to introduce — Ramily is to offer symbolic recognition of his genius and of his immense contribution to the Malagasy photographic and artistic landscape.

This exhibition is Ramily’s first monograph. It retraces the full breadth of his photographic œuvre while also revealing his mastery as a darkroom technician, through the reconstruction of his studio within the walls of Hakanto Contemporary. It is also a first in presenting the entirety of his collaborations — with local businesses, families, religious and political institutions, as well as with the world of entertainment.

The exhibition unfolds in five acts:
Prelude — the retrospective of a life, an ode to family, photography and society.
- LAHATRA — DESTINY, TRANSMISSION
FROM INTIMACY TO RAMILY
The central act — a black-and-white journey through his emotional and geographical territory: Madagascar.
- MAINTY, FOTSY, SY IREO LOKO REHETRA — BLACK, WHITE AND ALL OTHER COLOURS
TSANGATSANGANA ETO ANIVON’NY TANY — RAMILY AND THE MALAGASY TERRITORY

The final act — a moment of deep emotion: the reconstruction of Ramily’s iconic Techni-Photo studio in Itaosy, so that his memory may endure.
- ANKADIFOTSY, ITAOSY SY IREO EFITRA MAINTY — DARKROOMS

Our sincere thanks go to the family for the loan of the works, and in particular to his son, Hery Rakotondrazaka, for his close collaboration.
We also extend our gratitude to all Malagasy artistic voices for their testimonies.

Ramily — the one who gave birth to daylight between black and white.
Through his images, he reveals our history, and above all, our sometimes-uncertain emotions.

Joël Andrianomearisoa
Ludonie Velotrasina
April 2022

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).

A Group Exhibition
27 February – 4 September 2021

Curated by
Joël Andrianomearisoa

Hakanto Contemporary
Alhambra Gallery · Ankadimbahoaka
Antananarivo · Madagascar

Beyond All You Are Mine
Au-delà de tout tu es mien
A joyful affirmation at a time when the future remains uncertain. The end feels far away.
And what of tomorrow?
A declaration of life at a moment when breath falters. How do we breathe? With whom?
An assurance of deep friendship, even as today’s world appears disoriented.
Will we dance again? A kiss?
A state of love, at a time when naïve patriotism raises its head too insistently.

Three artists step forward to affirm that we are still together — inspired and alive.
The breath of time belongs to us, and our desires extend beyond all horizons.

The first is a Malagasy force: Temandrota.
He handles earth, kneads fire, and stirs our hearts to release new resonances.
In his immersive installation Kolondoy, he sketches new territories, new playgrounds, confronting us with the questions of tomorrow and with our deepest longings.

The second —
from the Bosphorus to the banks of the Ikopa —
:mentalKLINIK blur the tracks of a game played between materiality, luminosity and sentiment.
Without geography, save that of emotion.
Between the idea of two, of three, or more…
the duo :mentalKLINIK invites us to question the notion of a new love —
and above all, the love we carry for Antananarivo.
Another love. LOVE LIKE.

And the third —
Rina Ralay-Ranaivo, whose heart is shared between Antananarivo, Berlin and elsewhere, invokes in her work Chapter 1 her fantasies, our ancestors and History itself, along an imaginary river to be crossed.
Once again: to cross water, to cross time, to cross the other, to cross borders —
to find oneself again and affirm that, beyond all things, you are mine.
…to slip into the caress of the wind and let oneself be carried away.

Joël Andrianomearisoa
February 2021

A Group Exhibition
8 February 2020 – 9 February 2021

Curated by
Joël Andrianomearisoa

Hakanto Contemporary
Alhambra Gallery · Ankadimbahoaka
Antananarivo · Madagascar

ICI NOUS PORTONS
TOUS LES RÊVES
DU MONDE

I am nothing.
I shall never be anything.
I cannot wish to be anything.
Apart from that, I carry within me all the dreams of the world.
— Fernando Pessoa

Here is here. From here, we look at the world. From here, we also dream the world.
Let us imagine, let us speak of dreams, let us dream — for it is through dreaming that we may affirm a new Malagasy breath, through its contemporary creative forms, in dialogue with artists and modes of expression from elsewhere.

There are no fixed media in this proposition. The exhibition affirms a polyphony of forms, playing with time, its illusions and its realities.
The menu is not fixed. The menu knows no borders.
Chef Lalaina Ravelomanana sets the tone by revisiting a popular Malagasy dish,
to the rhythm of Kristel’s Nofy rock.
Here, context becomes play, diversity, and rule.
The eternal duo from Istanbul, :mentalKLINIK, reinvent a new love, a new game of love,
facing the newly drawn words of Môssieur Njo.
Across a diversity of lines, young designer Domi Sanji blends his lands, in confrontation with Alexandre Gourçon and his infinite folds.

Ramily, the father of contemporary Malagasy photography, somewhat forgotten, returns to the light through his emblematic series between desert and vegetal abundance.
Visual artist Donn installs his work between nightmare and tenderness, as choreographer Judith Manantenasoa speaks of the gentleness of chaos.
All of this is bathed in our wild Malagasy melancholy, through a continuous literary dialogue between Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo and Elie Rajaonarison.

Improbable encounters, meant to energise and to surprise.
Craft meets song.
Photography becomes a dress.
Words turn into canvases.
Let us weave literature, ignite fires, dance architecture, speak couture, dress the present.
Let us embroider cuisine and breathe in flowers.
Dreams are my reality — another kind of reality. The dreams of Iarivo.
The dreams of the world.
Let us drift.
Let us dream.
For here, in Madagascar, we carry all the dreams of the world.

Joël Andrianomearisoa
January 2019