Collection: Reclaiming Cultures

Between February 22, 2024, and March 8, 2024, Galerie Jano Lapin presents "Claiming Cultures" in collaboration with Post-Invisibles during their biennale. 

Seeking to externalize and deconstruct their relationships with immigration, Marcella França, Farzaneh Rezaei, and Mancy Rezaei share with us a poignant and deeply intimate corpus. Impacted by the influence of Western culture, they face new ways of seeing and thinking about the world, sometimes at the expense of identity coherence. Drawing inspiration from the host culture and drawing from memories and past narratives, often linked to family, they try to reconstruct their identities and feelings of belonging. In the quest for self, the feeling of in-between often leads to reclaiming one's cultures.

Marcella França's work perfectly illustrates this idea. By often making water the central element of her artistic research, she transports us into an immersive and transcendental visual poetry. From performance to digital arts, she explores through her process the relationships between nature and contemporary feminist issues, as well as sociological, political, and ecological questions. Her works "Trying to Fit" and "Comfort Zone" confront us with a sense of discomfort and a confined space where it is difficult to exist. Critically questioning patriarchy, Marcella França's works make us feel this general and oppressive discomfort that is an integral part of women's lives.

Through Farzaneh Rezaei's works, it is rather the fragmentation of territories and self that is addressed, all fragmented and dispersed. Rezaei presents us with a universal testimony shared by many: the harsh reality of immigration and its psychological and geographical impact. Using paper as a terrain in itself, she explores and contains it by defining paths, limitations, and boundaries with her brushes. The choice of pigments such as saffron also reinforces the symbolism within Farzaneh Rezaei's work, referring to her Iranian roots.

As for Mancy Rezaei, she fully invests in an artistic practice focused on architecture and geometry. Passionate about traditional Iranian motifs, she demonstrates a personal and intimate experience echoing her history. Her works explore the perception of the female body, a politicized and exploited organism. A fervent activist for women's rights in Iran, Mancy Rezaei's practice is nourished by her remarkable experience, giving rise to unique and impactful creations.

It is between the desire to preserve their heritages while absorbing the influences of the host culture that the artists deal with the question of whether it is possible to ever find balance in this perpetual duality.