The Bwiti rituals originated in Central Gabon. Several centuries ago It was at once a vision of the universe, a teaching, an organization of society and a therapy. Only admitted were those who had completed rites including chewing iboga root bark, hallucinogenic plants that changed perception...

10.05.2012[ read full story ]

The only belongings that slaves were allowed to take with them, as they were leaving their great kingdoms of West Africa, were their gods. They smuggled them out to the sugar plantations in Haiti and Brazil. There, under the effect of forced Christianization, syncretic religions were formed, ...

10.05.2012[ read full story ]

Removed from their social and cultural context, the masks, statues and ritual instruments that we admire in museums are bleeding to death from a lack of understanding. They were not created for our enjoyment, to satisfy our taste for exoticism and please the eyes. We can try stem the loss o...

10.05.2012[ read full story ]

Despite the Western misrepresentation of the animism of African religions, they share the belief in one God the Creator who is only accessible through the intermediaries of spiritual forces, energies emanating from nature and ancestral spirits. The fetishes are only the intercessors between...

10.05.2012[ read full story ]

Deidi von Schaewen travels the world looking for what man builds , anything concerning architecture, thoughtful and timeless, popular or improvised. Palaces, shanties, scaffolding, temporary decorations mounted for ritual celebrations, : as many public objects that she can gather to cre...

10.05.2012[ read full story ]

After 15 years in the little port town of Honfleur in Normandy, the Festival Chroniques Nomades is changing locations and settling in Reims. Claude Geiss, festival artistic director, admits humorously that he is “switching from cider to champagne!”. Le Grenier à sel, the sole exhibitio...

10.05.2012[ read full story ]

The 27th edition of The International Fashion and Photography Festival opened in Hyères on April 27. Curated by Michel Mallard and Raphaëlle Stopin, the Festival is presenting works by 10 photographers competing for the Photography Grand Prize, and boasts several exhibitio...

08.05.2012[ read full story ]

Bérénice Angrémy is undoubtedly one of the most emblematic figures of the contemporary art scene in Beijing. After having studied the Chinese language and traditional Chinese art in France, Bérénice left for Taiwan then settled in Beijing where she created several impo...

27.04.2012[ read full story ]

April 21, 2012, it is gray and warm in this capital city art district. Spring has arrived in Beijing and pollen is floating in the air like snow. It is in this calm seasonal atmosphere that preparations are under way for the burgeoning Coachangdi PhotoSpring, a unique local...

27.04.2012[ read full story ]

Photographer Mary Ellen Mark is married to film director Martin Bell. The couple resides in Manhattan, New York. They are both coming to Nordic Light, the festival that they’ve heard so much about. Together they’ve been working on a project which is being released in...

26.04.2012[ read full story ]