{"id":63783,"date":"2025-05-02T19:54:03","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T17:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.villa-arson.fr\/?post_type=people&p=63783"},"modified":"2025-05-02T19:54:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T17:54:08","slug":"mawena-yehouessi","status":"publish","type":"people","link":"https:\/\/new.villa-arson.fr\/en\/personne\/mawena-yehouessi\/","title":{"rendered":"Mawena Yehouessi"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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Mawena Yehouessi was the first graduate (2019\u20132024) of the PhD in project-based research conceived by Villa Arson and the Universit\u00e9 C\u00f4te d\u2019Azur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Thursday 12 December 2024, Yehouessi defended (t)he(i)r thesis entitled \u201cPo\u00efetiques afrofuturistes. Trimer trames \u00e0 l\u2019intersection du collage et de la curation\u201d at Villa Arson. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mawena Yehouessi<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Born in 1990 in Cotonou (Benin), Mawena Yehouessi is a self-described collisionist: a multi-hyphenate curator, researcher and artist. Founder of the collective Black(s) to the Future, they live and work between Nice and Paris, France. D(\u00e9)riv(e)ing forward through alter-futurisms and poiethics, Yehouessi\u2019s collaborative, forward-looking practice is based on im-ploration and collage, making space and time collide | confront | capsize. From a background in literature and philosophy, cultural project management and contemporary dance, Yehouessi belongs to those unclassifiable\/de(*)classified generations whose realities, practices and worlds, whose \u201cprofessions\u201d are a succession of slashes, soro-commons and shifts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thesis<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In turn recombining and gambling (on) a set of practices that are simultaneously speculative, artistic and collective, at any rate mined from survival strategies and (so-)called \u201cminoritarian\u201d necessities, Yehouessi\u2019s aim is not to create or decrypt new methods, knowledge or theories of art, but to put them to the \u2014 concrete and collective \u2014 test in space-times where co-existence is a synonym of co-creation. Combining Afrofuturism and Black Studies, artistic\/curatorial realities, writing\/translation and teaching\/research, Yehouessi invited, through three separate projects \u2014 a film\/series, Sol in the Dark<\/em>, a choreographic installation, \u201cNSNAMDLM\u201d, and the exhibition\/workshops to<\/em> \u201cThe Fire Next Time\u201d<\/em> \u2014 a multi-plicity of fe\/*\/male practitioners and friends to co-create situations of hostility and hospitality, of feats and defeats, of rage, toil, support and sympathy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Supervisors<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Jean Fran\u00e7ois Trubert, Professor of Musicology, Universit\u00e9 C\u00f4te d\u2019Azur<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sophie Orlando, Professor of Art Theory, Villa Arson<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nadia Yala Kisukidi, Professor of Philosophy, Paris 8 and now Associate Professor of French Literature, Thought and Culture, NYU<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Villa Arson x Universit\u00e9 C\u00f4te d\u2019Azur PhD program<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Practice-based research in arts aims to establish the artistic project as a matrix for research, combining both analytical reflection and the production of artworks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This doctoral program is aimed specifically at candidates displaying an original and innovative output in their chosen practical and theoretical fields, and also displaying a mastery of the theory, history and current stakes of art and the human and social sciences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Above all the candidate must demonstrate a new and experimental approach to the creation and presentation of art, as well as ongoing research activity at master\u2019s level or the equivalent. All forms of research are valid, however an interest in the Villa Arson\u2019s specific areas of activity is required.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Exhibitions as curator at Villa Arson<\/h3>\n\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n
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