French film-maker Alice Diop is preparing to open her debut multi-part installation, Geste de Consolation (Gesture of Consolation), in Paris. The five-day event, featuring film, artworks, readings, music, and dance, is scheduled to open on 21 October at the Palais d’Iéna, coinciding with the Art Basel fair.
Diop was invited by the Italian fashion house Miu Miu to create the installation. She describes the project as an opportunity to "bring together in one space, many of the women who work with me, who nourish me, who have helped me heal, and have together enabled this notion of consolation." These include writer Marie Ndiaye, American poet Robin Coste Lewis, and Chicagoan composer Angel Bat Dawid, as well as historical figures like Virginia Woolf.
The exhibition will feature an image by South African artist Zanele Muholi and will close with Simone Leigh’s sculpture Mami Wata. Diop's own contribution is a split-screen video installation of archival imagery and film clips that she states have formed her cinematic image bank.
This is the third year Miu Miu has sponsored such an exhibition at the Palais d’Iéna, a modernist building with a 60m-long central hall. Diop's installation will offer four main scenarios, including a library of texts that have influenced her work and life, where visitors can read and relax.