HELIO VOLANA
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Omeo Fahasoavana
(2026), Opening performance of the solo exhibition Lamba, La mémoire habite le silence, La Teinturerie, Antananarivo (Madagascar).Dance: Alain Rafanomezantsoa. Live music: Godry Black. Photos : Andy Rasoloharivony.
Lamba, la mémoire habite le silence (lamba memory dwells in silence) is Helio Volana's first solo exhibition. Presented at La Teinturerie in Antananarivo in spring 2026, it brings together a significant body of textile, ceramic and sculptural work. The exhibition follows a long period of research and creation initiated through the MIRA grant (Institut français, 2024), and later continued at the Archives Nationales d'Outre-Mer, at the Centre de Ressources des Arts Actuels de Madagascar, and at Fondation H.
The works take up the lambahoany, an emblematic Malagasy textile, as a vessel for memory and invocation, giving voice to stories of resistance to the French colonial period in Madagascar. Archival photographs, embroidery, traditional textiles, ritual beads, and vernacular materials come together to form a sanctuary where insurgents, queer people, and deified spiritual figures gather to bring to light narratives and figures marginalized by the legacies of colonization.
Sewn on the reverse side of the textile pieces, traditional lambahoany remain invisible at first, until light passes through and reveals them. This choreography of appearance, paced by natural light, echoes the lunar cycles at the heart of Malagasy fomba rituals.