Emo de Medeiros
Emo de Medeiros (b: 1979) is a Beninese French artist. He graduated from the elite Ecole Normale Superieure, and the Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts, both in Paris. He lives and works in Cotonou and in Paris.
Within his practice, he employs an array of media including drawing, sculpture, text, video, photography, performance art, installations, painting and textile. Investigating the new perspectives and conversations on the post-colonial, globalized and digitalized world, de Medeiros’ work explores the fusion of the digital and the material, looking into hybridizations, interconnections and circulations of forms, technologies, traditions, myths, and merchandises.
The focus of his research encompasses transcultural spaces and the questioning, through non-linear narratives, of traditional notions of origin, locus or identity and their mutations. Characterized by a participatory approach fusing traditional, technological and seismological elements in transmedia forms, his work includes a salient conceptual dimension which he addresses through the production of non-chronological series such as:Sutentures, Vodunautes, Cymbalics and Electrofetishes.
De Medeiros’ work was exhibited in major institutions including: Musee du Quai Branly, Musee National de l’Histoire de l’Immigration, Centre Pompidou, La Villette, Palais de Tokyo- all in Paris, France; Cobra Museum, the Netherlands; MACAAL, Morocco; Savvy Contemporary, Germany; Palais de la Marina (Benin). It was included in international Biennials including: 13th Guangju Bienale, Gwanju, South Korea; XXII Paiz Art Biennial, Guatemala City; 21st Contemporary Art Biennial Videobrasil; Dak’ Art Biennale.
