Rituel et Avatars d'Afrique
Au bout du voyage, un masque exilé
Autour du masque endormi flotte une force qui traverse l’espace, celui d’ici et celui de là-bas dans le pays où un artiste a créé le masque, et qui fait reculer le temps en remontant jusqu’à l’époque d’avant le départ vers l’ailleurs. Dans cet autre lieu et dans ce temps ancien, des esprits se sont embarqués sur les masques et ont voyagé jusque dans les lointains pays de l’exil. La puissance incrustée dans le masque est toujours là, quelle que soit la terre où il aborde.
Gilles Bibeau, anthropologue
The spirit awakens through the gesture
In this photographic exhibition, the body becomes the theatre of a silent ritual, a space where heritage, memory and presence meet. Each gesture, each muscular tension, each suspension of movement carries within it an energy that goes beyond simple representation. The model embodies an ancient memory, a circulating energy, a soul ready to manifest itself. He does not play a character: he becomes the mediator of a dialogue between the flesh, the mask and the invisible spirit that circulates between the two.
The mask, traditionally perceived as an ethnographic object or a cultural artefact, is transformed here into a living entity. Thanks to the staging of the body, it breathes, comes to life, takes on new affects. Far from being decorative, it becomes the extension of an inner presence, an extension of the being.
The mask becomes a silent voice, a materialized memory, a spiritual presence. In the darkness of the studio, the body sculpted by the light reveals the intensity of the ritual, as if the photograph captures the fragile moment when the mind takes shape.
Painter: Julien Lubanoa-Kandolo
&
Photographer: Claude Gauthier
Curator: professeur Norman Cornett
Guests of Honneur:
Gilles Bibeau, anthropologist
&
France Voltaire
Dates of the exhibition :
From February 14 to 27, 2026
Opening: 19 février, de 17:00 à 20:30
Peintre: Julien Lubanoa-Kandolo
&
Photographe: Claude Gauthier
Commissaire: Professeur Norman Cornett
Co-Présidents d'honneur:
France Voltaire & Dr. H Nigel Thomas
Avec la participation de:
Gilles Bibeau, anthropologue
Dates de l’exposition :
Du 14 au 27 février 2026
Vernissage: 19 février, de 17:00 à 20:30
The Body in Ritual is a contemporary reinterpretation and an extension of the project Les Porteurs de Masques, an artistic and curatorial approach developed between 2011 and 2012. Initiated by Guy Mushagalusa Chigoho from his private collection of African masks, the project produced by photographer Claude Gauthier. Presented in Montreal in 2011 at Mushagalusa Art Africain and at the Théâtre Centaure, then in 2012 in the lobby of Montreal City Hall, it offered an exploration of the mask as living intangible heritage. The body in ritual now offers a new artistic reading, with respect for the spirit and the founding collaboration.
"The Body in Ritual" gives new life to these photographs and inscribes their presence in a current and vibrant visual narrative.