Visuals from Raphaël Barontini's 'We Could Be Heroes' exhibition and performance

 

I met with Raphael in January to prepare my talk at the Royal Academy on 13 February.

I went to see the exhibition twice, and with my colleague from RFI went to the final performance on 3 Feb.

Here is a insight, commented by the artist:

Celebrating the hidden heroes of the
fight against slavery • RFI English 

Slavery has been a prominent theme in contemporary US and British art for many years, but French institutions have been slower to foreground the issue. 

This winter, the Panthéon monument in Paris gave carte blanche to artist Raphaël Barontini to bring lesser-known figures of emancipation into the light. 

His visuals were accompanied by an original sound piece by American music producer Mike Ladd, as well as two performances by the Caribbean carnival group Choukaj. 

The exhibition ran from 19 October 2023 to 11 February 2024.