Paris Exhibition Spotlights Benin's Warrior Queens of Dahomey

The Fondation Albert Kahn in Paris presents 'Bénin aller-retour. Regards sur le Dahomey de 1930', an exhibition revisiting a 1930 anthropological mission to Dahomey (present-day Benin) by missionary Francis Aupiais and filmmaker Frédéric Gadmer. Through vintage films, autochromes, and historical objects on loan from the Musée du quai Branly, the show documents voodoo cults and royal ceremonies, with a focus on the Amazons of Dahomey—the only all-female military regiment in modern history, organized under Queen Tasi Hangbè. The exhibition also features contemporary works by Beninese artists Ishola Akpo, Roméo Mivekannin, and Angelo Moustapha, offering modern perspectives on this heritage. The museum, renovated by architect Kengo Kuma in 2022, houses the Archives of the Planet—72,000 autochromes, 4,000 stereoscopic plates, and hundreds of films—recognized by UNESCO as a Memory of the World archive in 2025. On view until June 14, 2026.