[Many thanks to Olivia Maëlle Breleur for bringing this item to our attention.] “La Terre, le feu, l’eau, et les vents – Pour un musée de l’errance avec Édouard Glissant” [Earth, Fire, Water, and Winds – For a Museum of Wandering with Édouard Glissant] is the first international exhibition presenting the Édouard Glissant Art Collection in relation to new generations of artists. “For the first time, Édouard Glissant’s art collection leaves the Caribbean and travels to Brazil, offering the public a unique immersion into the world of the Martinican poet, novelist and philosopher.” Curated by Ana Roman and Paulo Miyada, the exhibition is on view at Instituto Tomie Ohtake, in São Paulo, Brazil, until January 25, 2026.
The list of over 50 artists includes: Victor Anicet (Martinique / FR, 1938), Raphaël Barontini (Guadeloupe / FR / IT, 1984), Minia Biabiany (Guadeloupe / FR, 1988), Ernest Breleur (Martinique / FR, 1945), Agustín Cárdenas (Cuba, 1927-2001), Julien Creuzet (Martinique / FR, 1986), Serge Hélénon (Martinique / FR, 1934), Wifredo Lam (Cuba, 1902-1982), Sylvie Séma Glissant (Martinique / FR, 1958), Kelly Sinnapah Mary (Guadeloupe / FR, 1981), and Pol Taburet (Guadeloupe / FR, 1997).
An initiative of the Instituto Tomie Ohtake, co-organized by Mémorial ACTe, the Edouard Glissant Art Fund (EGAF), and the Institut du Tout-Monde (ITM), with the Center for Art Research and Alliances (CARA), and the institutional support of the Institut Français.
[. . .] The exhibition brings together around sixty works: forty from Glissant’s personal collection, housed at the ACTe Memorial in Guadeloupe, and twenty creations by contemporary Caribbean and Brazilian artists whose artistic approaches resonate with his thinking. Among the pieces on display, works by artists from Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, and the United States, most of whom lived in Paris and maintained a connection with the Surrealist movement, engage in a dialogue with Glissant’s poetic and relational vision. “Nous avons rendez-vous où les océans se rencontrent,” wrote Glissant [We have a rendezvous where the oceans meet]. This sentence could be the guiding thread of the exhibition. It is less about juxtaposing works than about provoking encounters, resonances. Through visual arts and digital creation, “La Terre, le feu, l’eau, et les vents” presents itself as a living tribute to Glissant’s legacy: a thinker of the Tout-Monde, a visionary of planetary circulations, and a poet of landscapes, always attentive to the fragile beauty of relationships. [. . .]
« L’errance » [Wandering] as Method and Gesture
The exhibition title echoes one of Glissant’s major concepts: le musée de l’errance [the museum of wandering]. In contrast to traditional museums that classify and hierarchize, Édouard Glissant envisioned a museum that invites visitors to move freely among the artworks, to allow narratives to intersect, and to embrace the unpredictable.
The artists gathered in São Paulo are not necessarily direct heirs of Glissant, but they share the same poetic approach based on rethinking landscapes, deconstructing the linearity of memorial narratives, and questioning the body in its relationship to territory, language, and violence. This approach resonates powerfully with contemporary issues in Brazil and around the world. It is in this spirit that the works of Rayana Rayo, from Recife, and José Eduardo Ferreira Santos, from Salvador de Bahia, will be exhibited. Both were artists in residence at the Maison Édouard Glissant during the summer of 2025. Their approaches, between intimate abstraction and collective memory, find a direct echo in the poetics of relation dear to Glissant. [. . .]
Excerpts translated by Ivette Romero. For more information (in French), see https://outremers360.com/bassin-atlantique-appli/la-collection-edouard-glissant-exposee-pour-la-premiere-fois-a-sao-paulo-au-bresil-a-partir-du-3-septembre
Other related links:
Instituto Tomie Ohtake https://www.institutotomieohtake.org.br/exposicoes/a-terra-o-fogo-a-agua-e-os-ventos-por-um-museu-da-errancia-com-edouard-glissant/
Le fonds d’art Edouard Glissant https://www.edouardglissantartfund.com/fr/accueil/
L’institut du Tout Monde https://www.tout-monde.com/
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[Many thanks to Olivia Maëlle Breleur for bringing this item to our attention.] “La Terre, le feu, l’eau, et les vents – Pour un musée de l’errance avec Édouard Glissant” [Earth, Fire, Water, and Winds – For a Museum of Wandering with Édouard Glissant] is the first international exhibition presenting the Édouard Glissant Art Collection in
