Kokou Ferdinand Makouvia TG / FR, b. 1989

A tireless traveler, Kokou Ferdinand Makouvia draws on his explorations of the world to enrich his practice. His artistic journey takes the form of an outstretched hand, stubbornly seeking to (re)concile the here and the elsewhere: self and other, near and far, the memory of origins and the history of their erasure, the spirituality of ancestors and the philosophy to come - that inseparable whole that makes up every human being, fragments them, and with which we must, with rage and tenderness, tirelessly live. Influenced by the animism of his native culture and a profound spirituality, the sculptor has developed a highly personal philosophy, somewhere between materiality and sensitivity: turning the resistance of the material into a creative force, chance into a personal challenge, and accidents into a response from the material to be integrated into the work. At the same time, he developed a practice of performance, of reactions to the world and to things, often in the street, always impromptu.

Kokou Ferdinand Makouvia trained at the Beaux-Arts in Valenciennes, then in Paris, where he obtained his DNSAP in 2019, five years after beginning his art studies in Abidjan and after a

bachelor's degree in telecommunications in Lomé. He then joined the prestigious De Ateliers residency in Amsterdam (2019-2021). In 2021, he was awarded the Salomon Foundation Residency Award, which will enable him to join the ISCP residency, the International Studio & Curatorial Program in New York, in 2023.

In 2020, he co-founded the ArtMéssiamé residency, which aims to bring together artists working in Europe and others working in Africa. The annual edition of this multidisciplinary project takes place in Lomé and includes an artistic workshop and a writing workshop.

His works have been exhibited at the Dakar Biennale and the Congo Biennale in Kinshasa in 2022, and at Fiac Hors les Murs in 2021. Several of his works are included in the collections of Frac Picardie, Frac Pays de la Loire, and CNAP.