L'Alambic cosmique de la métamorphose: Kokou Ferdinand Makouvia

LIVING IN THE INVISIBLE

For Kokou Ferdinand Makouvia, art is developed as a space for attention. A space where matter is never inert, but imbued with memories, forces, and multiple temporalities. Art does not appear as an autonomous object, but as an active relationship with the earth, gestures, bodies, and places.

Born in Togo, the artist grew up between several worlds: that of the city and that of the village, that of a Christian education and that, more underground, of animist practices observed without always being explained. Very early on, he understood that certain things cannot be said but must be experienced. The imposed silences, the slow movements, the attention paid to the ground, the trees, and objects shaped a keen perception of space. "Space became something that takes hold of you inside, something you can't detach yourself from," he explains. These formative experiences have since shaped the way he inhabits the world.

Matter as language

Drawing first imposes itself as an instinctive language. Then come sculpture, assemblage, clay, metal, fibers, ceramics. Materials are never chosen for their plastic qualities alone, but for what they contain: memory, energy, capacity for transformation. This approach evokes the thinking of Gaston Bachelard, for whom matter is a "dream" to be deciphered, a latent poetry. Working with the material is like entering into a conversation with it. "I don't really create, I communicate," explains the sculptor. The gesture is constructed with care, leaving room for observation, anticipation, and whatever may happen. The artist does not seek to impose a form, but to reveal a presence.

Compose, ritualize, repair

Kokou Ferdinand Makouvia works with materials as a musician works with notes. Some of his works are created in collaboration with artisans from his village in Togo, giving the work a collective and localized dimension. The forms bring together seemingly contradictory elements—heavy and light, raw and refined, sacred and profane—without ever establishing a hierarchy between them.

His work is part of a profound reflection on the spiritual dimension of matter, which is still present in certain African cosmologies but has been largely discarded by contemporary societies. Earth, wood, and metal all have equal value and their own power. Through installations, modular structures, and drawings, the artist evokes the notion of ritual, not as a reproduction of ancient gestures, but as a way of reactivating what has been buried. "We must listen to what still exists, even if it is drowned out by prestige or oblivion," he says.

An exploration of forms and materials

In the exhibition The Cosmic Alembic of Metamorphosis, this approach takes on an immersive and embodied form, with the artist employing a wide variety of materials and media, from metal to ceramics, and from canvas to drawing. Upon entering, the installation Aze Ze Ame Adre, The Seven Vases of Witchcraft (2024), composed of ceramic elements, unfolds a set of principles that draw both on initiatory knowledge and a critical framework, questioning the construction of narratives and systems of thought. The journey continues past large yellow canvases that line the ascent to the upper floor. Bathed in sunlight, they create a sensory passage where the figures—sometimes upside down—disorient the viewer and draw the body into an unstable experience, as if the visitor were moving through the very heart of a process of transformation.

Upstairs, Temporary Exposure (2022–2024), a monumental drawing nine meters long, unfolds as an uninterrupted journey. Through a network of expanding lines and forms, the artist imbues the work with an intense, almost trance-like gesturality, in which the body becomes a medium of circulation between different layers of perception. The work reveals connections between what is visible and what remains hidden, allowing a deeper network of relationships to emerge. The sculptures of Blows and Knots (since 2018) extend this exploration into the medium of metal. Born of a physical and repetitive process of forging, they crystallize movements, constraints, and physical intensity, giving form to tensions that are both intimate and collective. The exhibition thus unfolds as a space of circulation and transformation, where each work initiates a transition and invites visitors to reconfigure their perception of the world.

Thresholds and passages

The works often take the form of open structures, modules whose balance remains deliberately unstable. They evoke thresholds, areas of passage, without ever imposing a linear narrative. The viewer is not simply an observer: they are invited to slow down, to situate themselves, to experience the space. "Matter may have the same movement as us, but at a different pace," suggests the artist. 

The exhibition is part of this dynamic. It does not seek to illustrate a point or impose a single interpretation. It offers a space to be experienced, traversed by forms in the making, designed to resonate with the architecture, bodies, and sensibilities. For Kokou Ferdinand Makouvia, the work is never an end in itself, but an invitation to listen, to be present, to inhabit matter and the world in a different way.

Christine Blanchet