AKAA 2026: Zangbéto V and VI at the Carreau du Temple
The AKAA fair opens in Paris. Two works from my Zangbéto series, V and VI, are hanging on the Ellipse Art Projects stand D7 until 25 October.
AKAA, short for Also Known As Africa, is the contemporary art and design fair devoted to the art scenes of Africa and its diasporas. This is its eleventh edition. It takes place at the Carreau du Temple, a 19th-century market hall in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris, during Paris Art Week: the week when Art Basel Paris brings collectors, galleries and curators from all over the world to the city.
More than thirty galleries are taking part this year. Photography is at the heart of this edition. The fair is opening a new space, AKAA PHOTO, for the two hundredth anniversary of photography: it looks at how photographers have built the visual memory of the continent, from independence to changing cities, from reinvented traditions to the dreams of young people.
On stand D7
Ellipse Art Projects chose black walls and a tight light on each work. Zangbéto VI hangs at the entrance of the stand. Against this dark background, its blues, purples and oranges stand out as they did in the Porto-Novo night where the image was born. Zangbéto V is shown a little further on, alongside works by the other artists Ellipse represents.
I am not in Paris
I am not at the fair. On 22 October, the very day of the opening, I begin the Regards Croisés Québec-Bénin residency in Benin. The works travel, and Ellipse Art Projects represents me there. I follow the fair from a distance, through the photos that reach me from the stand.
Why it matters
For the Zangbéto project, this is a milestone. The series was born in Porto-Novo in 2024, around a protective divinity, the guardian of the night among the Goun people. I photographed it in the presence of the Zangan, guardians and keepers of this tradition, with the time and respect it requires. Seeing it today at an international fair, in front of collectors and institutions, shows that the sacred can be shown without being betrayed.
For African art, it is also a question of perspective. For a long time, our traditions were mostly photographed from the outside. Zangbéto is the work of an artist who lives in Cotonou, who knows these codes and who also knows when not to photograph. AKAA exists so that artists from the continent and its diasporas are seen, travel and are recognised. Being part of it with Ellipse, two years after being a finalist of the Ellipse Prize in Benin, makes me proud.
“Night is not a lack of light. It is a territory.”
