Des/astres
April 9–August 31, 2025
8 Avenue du Mahatma Gandhi
75116 Paris
France
Through her multidimensional practice, Tabita Rezaire explores the links between art, science, spirituality, and new technologies, to question the states of (dis)connection to ourselves, to others, to the earth, to the ancestors, and memories.
For her solo exhibition at the Fondation as part of the Open Space programme, the French artist of Danish-Guianese descent, is presenting Des/astres* (2024), the last part of a trilogy devoted to the connections that humanity weaves with the cosmos. While the first work—Mamelles ancestrales (2019)—explored Senegambian stone monuments to understand our relationships with the dead, the second—Orbit Diapason (2021)—presented a reflection on the existence of extraterrestrial life from a South African megalithic site. The third chapter—Des/astres—examines humanity’s desire to go beyond the Earth and commune with the invisible.
Filmed on the Guiana Shield in the Amazon forest, Des/astres unfolds in four chapters—forest, water, stone, sky—all portals for connecting to the universe. Like the rockets of the Guiana Space Centre soaring into the atmosphere, stone circles, sacred trees, even water spirits are all means of cosmic exploration. Testimonies gathered from tradition keepers, shamans, astrophysics, and researchers reveal the metaphysical heritage of a land where ancestral knowledge lives alongside contemporary scientific theories.
Des/astres is screened under the dome of a carbet—Guianese Amazonian vernacular architecture—and invites the audience to stretch out in hammocks, which have been woven according to the traditional practices of the Kali’na and Lokono peoples. Under this “planetarium carbet,” Des/astres immerses us into the cosmovisions of different communities in French Guiana, at the intersection of the Amazonian mysticism and spatial expansionism.
In a world marked by ecological crises and the acceleration of technological innovations, “Des/astres is an invitation to welcome the universe inside ourselves, to remind us of the power of the original mystery.”
Curators: Claudia Buizza and Ludovic Delalande (Fondation Louis Vuitton)
Tabita Rezaire. Des/astres, 2024, has been commissioned and co-produced by Fondation Louis Vuitton and TBA21. The work has been presented at Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, as part of the exhibition Calabash Nebula.
*In French the title means both disasters and celestial bodies.
About the artist
Tabita Rezaire (1989, France) lives and works in Matoury (French Guiana). Tabita Rezaire’s works have been displayed at the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; TBA, Madrid; Serpentine Gallery, London; MASP, São Paulo; MoMa, New York; New Museum, New York; Gropius Bau, Berlin; MAXXI Museum, Rome; MMOMA, Moscow; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Donnaregina, Naples; ICA, London; V&A, London; National Gallery Denmark; The Broad, Los Angeles; MoCADA, New York; Tate Modern, London; Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Paris. She has taken part in several international biennials (Havana, Gwangju, Sydney, Shanghai, Athens, Vienna, Kochi, Berlin), the Guangzhou Triennial and Performa, New York.
In 2020, she founded Amakaba, a non-profit organisation devoted to promoting Amazonian environmental and cultural heritage through art, science and ancestral traditions. In addition to supporting pregnant women as a doula, the artist farms a plantation on which she grows cocoa as well as medicinal and dye plants.
Tabita Rezaire is represented by the Goodman Gallery (Johannesburg, Cape Town, London, New York).
The Open Space programme
Open Space is an exhibition programme dedicated to contemporary art which actively supports national and international artists, providing the opportunity for a first personal exhibition and the production of a new work. Since 2018, this programme has hosted solo exhibitions of Jean-Marie Appriou (1986, France), Matt Copson (1992, UK), Anna Hulačová (1984, Czech Republic), Hoël Duret (1988, France), Lauren Halsey (1987, US), Meriem Bennani (1988, Morocco), Jean Claracq (1991, France), Bianca Bondi (1986, South Africa), Özgür Kar (1992, Turkish), Lydia Ourahmane (1992, Algeria), Ndayé Kouagou (1992, France), Alex Ayed (1989, France), Xie Lei (1983, China), Lu Yang (1984, China), Portia Zvavahera (1985, Zimbabwe).
