The forgotten images of Cédric Kouamé

Cédric Kouamé grew up in Abidjan, the largest city in Ivory Coast. His artistic path is intertwined with another irrepressible passion, his almost obsessive tendency to accumulate objects of all kinds, in particular abandoned photographs and fragments of film, images transformed by light, time, atmospheric conditions, which Kouamé recomposes inside his works, bringing them to life again. Abidjan is humid and archives become living objects, influenced by climate, time and context. Kouame would go to photography studios and ask them to share with him any images they wanted to throw away. Because for many, what use is a photograph where the image is hidden? But for an artist, the act of hiding can be an important gesture in the process of creation. In this exhibition, entitled Elastic Visions, the artist invites us to look at time and the act of seeing as a flexible process that allows us to observe images with a new gaze.