The room opens and a whole section of history breathes again... For the Saison Brésil-France 2025, photographer and researcher Nicola Lo Calzo presents Nego Fugido, mémoires quilombolas, a monographic exhibition rooted in the living traditions of the community ofAcupe, Brazil, to be discovered at the Centre d'art Ygrec-ENSAPC in Aubervillers from June 5 to July 12, 2025.
This project was born of fieldwork undertaken between 2022 and 2025, nourished by a deep immersion in the ritual practices of the quilombos, villages founded by escaped slaves. Theexhibition unfolds as a sensitive confrontation between history, spirituality and resistance. It offers a visual and sound reading of the Nego Fugido, a spectacular ritual at the crossroads of theater, politics and the sacred, which gives body and voice to the invisible stories of slavery.
This event, held at the Centre Ygrec-ENSAPC, is part of a collective reflection on the occasion of the Aimé Césaire Cycle and the national day of remembrance of the slave trade, slavery and their abolition. It invites you to confront Atlantic memories of slavery, and to follow the thread of a lively performance that overturns dominant narratives.
Nego Fugido, as practiced in Acupe, is much more than a reenactment: it's an act of reappropriation of the past. Through lively tableaux performed by bodies, songs and gestures, local people re-enact scenes of trafficking and oppression, as well as escape, struggle and survival.
In theexhibition for the Brazil-France 2025 Season, this memory takes the form of a constellation of images and sounds, featuring photographs, videos, ritual objects and archives. The whole is traversed by the figure ofExu, an ambivalent entity in Afro-Brazilian cults, a symbol of passage and mediation, who guides the visitor between the strata of a still vibrant past.
This artistic proposal is aimed as much at those curious about colonial history as it is at contemporary art lovers in search of immersive experiences. It is particularly resonant in the urban context ofAubervilliers, a territory traversed by multiple diasporic memories. The exhibition acts as a place of transmission as much as of questioning: to whom does collective memory belong? Who has the right to tell?
In collaboration with theAssociação Cultural Nego Fugido, Nicola Lo Calzo adopts an attentive documentary approach, deliberately far removed from any exoticism or voyeurism. Each image is the fruit of a bond forged with the community, of patient dialogue, of respectful listening to minority narratives.
This approach, rooted in a queer and intersectional perspective, also questions the power relations in the construction of representations, particularly in the field of contemporary art. The exhibition does not illustrate a ritual: it shows a living, ongoing struggle against stereotypes and identity assignments.
Through the KAM project, initiated in 2010, Nicola Lo Calzo is pursuing a long-term investigation into forms of post-slavery resistance in Africa, the Caribbean, the Americas and Europe. Nego Fugido is part of this cartography of multiple memories, like a poetic and political breach in the silence of official archives.
Alongside theexhibition, ten photographs by Nicola Lo Calzo will be displayed in the streets ofAubervilliers. A way of broadening the scope of the project, bringing art into the public space, and anchoring these stories in everyday life. Whether you're out for a stroll, with family, friends or a curious visit, these images captured between ashes and fire will call out to you, suspending your gaze and reminding you that history is written not only with words, but also with the bodies that remember.
The vernissage, scheduled for June 5, 2025 from 7 to 9 pm, promises a powerful entry into this sensory experience. If you're sensitive to forgotten narratives, invisible struggles and forms of expression that restore meaning to the past, this exhibition is for you. A memorial and artistic journey through the folds of time, not to be missed.
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Dates and Opening Time
From June 5, 2025 to July 12, 2025
Location
Ygrec-ENSAPC Art Center
29 Rue Henri Barbusse
93300 Aubervilliers
Prices
Free
Official website
bresilfrance2025.com
More information
Open Wednesday to Saturday, 2 to 7 p.m.
