Rituals and Avatars of Africa
At the End of the Journey, an Exiled Mask
Around the sleeping mask floats a force that traverses space—both here and over there, in the country where an artist created the mask—and that pushes back time, reaching back to the era before the departure to elsewhere. In that other place and ancient time, spirits boarded the masks and traveled to the distant lands of exile. The power embedded in the mask remains, regardless of the land where it arrives.
Gilles Bibeau, anthropologist
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 Lubanda-Kandolo
&
Photographer: Claude Gauthier
Curator: professeur Norman Cornett
Guests of Honneur:
Frantz Voltaire & Dr. H Nigel Thomas
with the participation of
Gilles Bibeau, anthropologist
Dates of the exhibition :
From February 14 to 27, 2026
Opening: 19 février, de 17:00 à 20:30
Painter: Julien Lubanoa-Kandolo
Photographer: Claude Gauthier
Curator: Professor Norman Cornett
Co-Honorary Presidents:
France Voltaire & Dr. H Nigel Thomas
With the participation of:
Gilles Bibeau, anthropologist
Exhibition Dates:
February 14 to 27, 2026
Opening Reception: February 19, from 5:00 PM to 8:30 PM
Rituals and Avatars of Africa 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.
Concept and original idea : Guy Mushagalusa Chigoho
Artistic Direction et photography : Claude Gauthier
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