"Naza po Tozali ...On the way to find myself" the exhibition

New Afro
Oct 4
3 min read

Updated: Oct 7

A Journey of Self-Discovery at the French Institute

This month, New Afro unveiled Naza Po Tozali… On The Way To Find Myself, a bold and intimate exhibition that pulled together three artists from across continents and experiences Jean-Baptiste Joire, Benga Mavinga, and Éveline Soum. What connected them wasn’t geography or medium, but a shared pursuit: the ongoing search for self.

From the very first step inside the French Institute, visitors were invited into a world where tradition met modernity, a dialogue between the personal and the political, the remembered and the reinvented.

The entrance itself set the tone. A blue curtain cascaded from ceiling to floor, wrapping around the grand staircase in a gesture that felt both theatrical and introspective. It caught the light, shifting with every movement, subtly guiding the viewer’s gaze toward the illuminated works of Jean-Baptiste Joire.

Jean-Baptiste Joire: Le Précieux

Centrally placed and glowing with quiet intensity, Joire’s photographs formed a triad titled Le Précieux. At first glance, they appeared serene, but beneath their calm surface lay a biting critique.

His series questions the privilege of movement: Who gets to cross borders, and at what cost? In 2023 alone, African citizens lost over 54 million euros on visa applications that were never refunded. For Senegalese applicants, refusals neared 70%. Joire juxtaposes these numbers with poetic imagery, the dream of flight, the shimmer of aspiration, and the cold reality of denied access.

In his world, the Schengen Zone becomes a mirage, a paradise glimpsed but rarely reached. Le Précieux forces us to confront the economics of hope and the injustice of a system where desire itself becomes profitable.

Benga Mavinga: Kimuntu

Moving up into the Main Salon, the atmosphere shifted. The space bloomed with color, reds, yellows, whites, and layered fabrics that seemed to breathe with life. Here, Benga Mavinga’s Kimuntu unfolded like a visual poem.

His work is both a homecoming and a dialogue between generations. Through his lens, we follow his journey back to the Congo, to reconnect with his father, his lineage, and the quiet pulse of ancestral memory. In a letter-like reflection, he writes:

“I have seen that humanity resides in each being by its essence and that it does not need to be recognized to exist.”-Benga Mavinga

Mavinga’s photographs radiate warmth, yet they carry the gravity of migration and inherited memory. The fabrics draping the room seem to hold whispers of past lives, protection, nostalgia, love, and the weight of everything that travels with us when we leave home.

Éveline Soum: Peogo

In contrast, Éveline Soum brings stillness and intimacy. Her series Peogo takes us to Burkina Faso, where she documents the disappearing tradition of the marriage basket a gift once cherished, now fading from contemporary life.

Through her lens, everyday objects calabashes, sieves, spatulas become vessels of memory. They speak of continuity and care, of what women pass down to each other through generations. Soum pairs her images with recorded voices^:stories of love, obligation, and pride revealing how traditions evolve, how identity reshapes itself in the face of modernity.

The result is quietly powerful. Peogo feels like a meditation on what we choose to keep and what we let go, an act of preservation that is, in itself, an expression of identity.

Together, these three perspectives form more than an exhibition, they form a mirror. One that reflects not only the artists’ own journeys but the questions we all carry:Who am I? What defines me? How are we shaped by those who came before us?

The title itself, Naza Po Tozali: “I am, because we are”, captures this essence. Borrowed from Lingala and echoing the philosophy of Ubuntu, it reminds us that identity is never singular. It’s collective, relational, in constant motion.

In a time marked by global uncertainty, forced migrations, and rigid debates around belonging, this exhibition feels urgent. It doesn’t preach unity as an ideal but reveals it as a lived, fragile reality, one that must be constantly nurtured.

Through their distinct visual languages, Joire, Mavinga, and Soum reclaim the narrative of identity from the margins, offering instead a chorus of perspectives that is fluid, plural, and deeply human.