From 8 May to 8 November 2026, the museum plans to host the new edition of \u201cExpression(s) d\u00e9coloniale(s)\u201d, where it will open its spaces to fresh historical perspectives and artistic sensibilities on France\u2019s history as a colonial and slave-trading power, and Nantes\u2019 specific role in shaping this.<\/p>\n
Three remarkable figures, working at the contemporary intersection of history, art, and memory, have accepted the museum\u2019s invitation.<\/p>\n
Beninese historian Lylly Houngnihin<\/strong>, and founder and director of Totems Afrikara\u00efbes<\/em>, will engage visitors with a series of roughly ten texts interweaving history, memory, poetry, culture, and emotion. By connecting them to a selection of objects from the museum\u2019s permanent itinerary, her approach to its collections will be both cross-disciplinary and deeply personal: \u201cMy work explores objects as vessels of memory, revealing what I call \u2018Atlantic persistences\u2019: the symbolic, visual, and ritual forms that circulated from Africa to other territories, often despite the extreme violence of the slave trade. Objects thus become vehicles of experience, embodying stories of loss and displacement, but also of aesthetic, social, and cultural reinvention.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n From S\u00e3o Paulo, Rosana Paulino<\/strong> is a leading figure in Brazil\u2019s contemporary art scene. For this year\u2019s Expression(s) D\u00e9coloniale(s)<\/em>, she will take over different sections of the permanent collection with roughly ten major works. Whether it is through drawing, painting, sculpture, video, or installation, she will offer visitors multiple perspectives, while dialoguing with the museum\u2019s historical documents and paying tribute to Afro-Brazilian women. Were female victims of the Atlantic slave trade and colonial slavery victims like any other? What specific forms of violence were inflicted upon them? What fundamental role did they play in passing on knowledge they had inherited from the African continent? Finally, behind their silence and denial, what kind of resilience enabled them to endure<\/em>? Through her work, Paulino sheds light on what persists and what disappears.<\/p>\n