Joey Aresoa's Mizaha Paris Exhibition at Fondation H

Joey Aresoa, a painter and poet born in 1986 in Antananarivo, presents her work at Fondation H in Paris from June 11 to July 18, 2026, following a three-month residency at the Cité internationale des arts as part of the Mizaha program. Fondation H is the first museum in Paris entirely dedicated to Malagasy artists. Aresoa identifies with the mitady ny very movement, meaning 'the search for the lost,' which originated in Malagasy modernism of the 1930s. Her artistic process involves four stages: first, a poem written in French often incorporating Malagasy vocabulary; second, an abstract painting using coffee, acrylic, and liquid pigments focused on stain rather than form; third, a digital photomontage layering found images from the internet; and finally, a figurative canvas that synthesizes all previous layers. Her poetic territory revolves around effacement, nostalgia, and errance, addressing themes often overlooked by history—female ritual practices like braiding and embodied gestures, tatao altars marking Malagasy landscapes, ochre earth, and transitional spaces. She cites philosophers and ancestors, embedding her work in a memory that predates modernity, reflecting an island that has had to learn to preserve what time sought to take.