Minia Biabiany, Musa Nuit

For the fourth segment of the series “Matters of Concern | Matières à panser”, launched in April 2019 at La Verrière, the Brussels art space of the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, curator Guillaume Désanges presents a solo exhibition by the Guadeloupean artist Minia Biabiany. The title "Musa Nuit” is a reference to the flower of the banana tree, renowned for its medicinal properties and asa healing agent for the uterus. Biabiany’s sculptural drawings, objects and weavings fuse traditional skills with local and organic materials to evoke Caribbean women’s bodies as witnesses to her country’s colonial past. Her exhibition “Musa Nuit” offers a reflection on the sexuality of contemporary Guadeloupean and Caribbean women and the ways in which history has imprinted itself upon their subconscious. In the Brussels exhibition space, Biabiany presents a sensual, metaphoric journey in which handcrafted objects, sculptures and banana flowers serve to reactivate repressed memories. Born on the French Carribean island of Guadeloupe in 1988, Biabiany views her exhibition as a ritual, allowing her to engage with the question of identity in ways that are both poetic and political.