Hoda Afshar at the Musée du Quai Branly: a committed exhibition on images, the gaze and resistance

What if photography could reveal the invisible and challenge established narratives? Visual artist Hoda Afshar 's first solo exhibition in France will be on view at the Musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac from Tuesday, September 30, 2025 to Sunday, January 25, 2026, unveiling her poetic and political work on representation, gazes and imposed narratives. Through a series of photographs and video installations, she explores how the image becomes a tool of domination as much as of resistance, questioning our relationship to what we see, and to what we are shown.

Behind her lens, Musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac doesn't just capture reality: she unfolds it, questions it, puts it in tension. Born in Tehran in 1983 and now based in Melbourne, the artist explores the zones of silence left by dominant narratives: marginality, gender identity, displacement, colonial history. In this new exhibition, the Musée du quai Branly gives her carte blanche to take over the space with her powerful works, which combine photographs, drawings, sound installations and videos.

A critical reappropriation of colonial history

The heart of the exhibition is The Fold, a photographic installation. The artist revisits the photographs of Gaëtan de Clérambault, a physician-psychiatrist who documented Moroccan bodies between 1918 and 1919, in a colonial context. These images, preserved in the museum's collections, are reinterpreted here through a contemporary, critical eye, which seeks to deconstruct the mechanisms of power hidden behind apparent photographic objectivity.

With this work, Hoda Afshar tackles a burning question: how do images shape our perception of bodies, identities and histories? If you're sensitive to the power of the photographic medium and the question of representation, this work invites you to take your time, to observe differently, to confront what photography can reveal... or conceal. Or conceal.

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Hoda Afshar, betweeninvisible rituals and natural forces

Another highlight of the exhibition is the installation Speak the Wind, a visual essay filmed on the islands of the Strait of Hormuz in southern Iran. There, the inhabitants live in close contact with the winds, perceived as spiritual forces capable of causing or curing disorders. Hoda Afshar 's delicate, sensitive narrative captures these invisible rituals and questions the relationship between local beliefs and collective identity.

As you walk through this immersive space, you'll find yourself immersed in an atmosphere between the real and the imaginary, where the boundaries between documentary and contemporary art become blurred. Far from a surface exoticism, this project is part of an in-depth research into alternative forms of narration and invisibilized voices.

An exhibition to experience, listen to and feel

The Performing the Invisible exhibition welcomes you in a contemplative and engaging atmosphere, for those wishing to discuss images and their power. The tour is fluid, punctuated by aural and visual breaths that leave room for reflection and emotion.

If you've always been fascinated by the way images construct our collective narratives, or if you're curious to discover a major contemporary artist who questions the world with finesse and intensity, this exhibition is for you. Hoda Afshar doesn't just show you photos: she invites you to look differently, to question the obvious, to enter into a dialogue with what escapes, what has remained in the shadows, what is waiting to be seen differently.

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