On view until April 26, 2025, Animismes Universels is the latest exhibition at the Montresso Art Foundation, nestled just outside Marrakech, Morocco. The show opened during the Marrakech edition of the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, grounding itself in a timely and growing conversation about spirituality, memory, and artistic expression across the African continent.
At the heart of this edition is France born curator Ayoko Mensah, whose own family roots trace back to Togo, the country where I was born and raised. Previously, after establishing herself as a journalist, she served as the head of a multidisciplinary program called Afropolitan at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels (BOZAR) from 2016 to 2022. Her personal connection to my motherland infuses the exhibition with deep reverence and cultural insight, elevating it beyond a curated experience into a profound act of cultural storytelling.
The exhibition is part of IN-Discipline, Montresso’s flagship program that merges artist residencies with public engagement. Now in its 6th edition, IN-Discipline spotlights Togo, examining its history, collective memory, and spiritual legacy through the lens of contemporary art. Each year, the program focuses on a different African territory, offering it both visibility and voice in an increasingly interconnected global art world.
At the core of Animismes Universels lies animism, a belief system deeply embedded in many West African societies. Often defined as the attribution of a soul to plants, inanimate objects, and natural phenomena, animism is also widely understood as the belief in a supernatural power that organizes and animates the material universe. In countries like Togo, this worldview is not merely symbolic—it shapes entire ways of being, governing how communities interact with nature, ancestors, and the cosmos.
Mensah’s curatorial approach draws from Vodun and Fâ, ancestral knowledge systems from the Gulf of Benin that transcend Western categories of religion, geomancy, or science. “Far removed from the materialism of Western societies,” she says, “these artists invite us to explore alternative dimensions of life—symbolic, animist, and enigmatic.” In this context, spirituality is not abstract—it is intimate, alive, and interconnected with every facet of daily life. Animismes Universels brings this worldview into dialogue with contemporary visual culture, asking viewers to reimagine life itself as a dynamic interaction between the visible and the invisible, the personal and the cosmic.
The exhibition features a remarkable group of Togolese artists: Helène Amouzou, Kossi Assou, Sokey Edorh, Ake O’lokan, Thierry Tomety, William Adjété Wilson, and Elom 20ce, most of whom I was able to speak with during a visit to Montresso in early February. While not all are formally initiated into Vodun or Fâ, each artist engages with the spiritual and cultural heritage of Togo through deeply personal and innovative practices. Their work transcends traditional forms to present a contemporary, transcultural, and universal investigation of identity, spirituality, and resilience.
In Amouzou’s haunting self-portraits, we see the echo of diaspora and displacement. In Edorh’s textured landscapes, nature becomes a repository of memory and myth. Elom 20ce’s multidisciplinary work fuses music, language, and symbolism to animate history with new urgency. Across the exhibition, symbols, rituals, and ancestral wisdom emerge not as relics, but as living forces—transmitted, questioned, and reimagined through the hands of each artist.
More than an exhibition, Animismes Universels is an invitation to listen—to the land, to the ancestors, and to each other. It is a meditation on the sacred and the everyday, on legacy and transformation. Under Ayoko Mensah’s thoughtful curation, the show becomes a portal into Togo’s rich and multifaceted soul, and a compelling call to see the world through a more expansive, interconnected lens.
For anyone visiting Marrakech this season, a trip to the Montresso Art Foundation promises not only a visual feast, but a profound encounter with a worldview where everything—every stone, every tree, every breath—holds spirit.