Micro-Folie Moris Exhibition
Who creates the images of an island?
For a long time, islands have been narrated, painted, and imagined through the eyes of those who came from elsewhere. With Figures, îles et identités, Exotisme et altérité, Micro-Folie Moris turns the question around: who owns the image of the island?
On show at the Institut français de Maurice until the end of September 2026, the exhibition is curated by Jean-François Dorza. It brings together Gaël Froget and Evan Sohun, two artists from the Bactory collective, whose works engage in dialogue with Micro-Folie’s digital collection, spanning artists from Gauguin to Jean-Michel Basquiat to Frida Kahlo.
On Tuesday, September 8 at 6:30 pm, a public Café-Folies event will bring the artists together in conversation with historian Stéphane Karghoo and cultural journalist Dominique Bellier. The evening will close with a mini opening. Free admission, registration recommended at institutfrancais.mu.
A contemporary perspective on the island and its representations
The exhibition starts from a simple observation: the island has long been narrated by others ,through visions of exoticism, colonial narratives, and fantasized representations. Gaël Froget and Evan Sohun work from this starting point. Their works shift these images, turn them around, and offer alternatives.
The exhibition unfolds across three spaces.The Sketch Workshop gives access to the notebooks, sketches, and references that feed the artists’ work. Represent — Imagine — Reconstruct brings different artistic trajectories into dialogue to question the mechanisms of representation and identity construction. Bactory, up close, recreates part of the studio’s world through objects, books, sculptures, and ceramics.
Two artists, two ways of writing Mauritius
Gaël Froget
Gaël Froget works between naïve art, raw art, and abstraction. His works draw on Mauritius’s plural history, the Creole language, and contemporary culture, combining spontaneous gestures with constructed compositions. Born in 1986 in Mauritius, founder of Bactory and co-founder of Vitrinn, he is actively involved in developing independent spaces dedicated to artistic creation and experimentation in Mauritius.
Evan Sohun
An artist, illustrator, and author, Evan Sohun has built a graphic language rooted in Mauritian identity and the collective imagination. Through his character Toudim, he gives graphic form to “everyone,” using the body as a space for expressing a shared identity. His recent work explores life’s passage on the island, the cycles of life, and spirituality.
September 8: Artists, history, and perspectives on Mauritius
At the Café-Folies event on Tuesday, September 8 at 6:30 pm, Gaël Froget and Evan Sohun will open up their creative approach to the public in a discussion. They will engage in dialogue with Stéphane Karghoo, historian and director of the Nelson Mandela Centre for Afro-Mauritian Culture, and Dominique Bellier, independent cultural journalist and former head of the culture section at Le Mauricien. The discussion will address the construction of perspective, the silences of history, and how to reclaim ownership of one’s own image. The event will close with a mini vernissage.
