Malala Andrialavidrazana

Malala Andrialavidrazana (b. 1971) 

Born and raised in Madagascar before settling in Paris at the age of twelve, Malala Andrialavidrazana fuels her practice by moving from one land to another.

By way of the photographic medium, she interrogates barriers and interactions within cross-cultural contexts, thoughtfully shifting between private spaces and global considerations to explore social imaginaries. Over time, she has invented a language whose approach is resolutely turned toward history, while simultaneously evidencing a profound engagement with contemporary issues and developments. Based on extensive in situ as well as bibliographic and archival research, her visual compositions open up the possibility of alternative forms of storytelling and history-making.

Background

Graduate from the National Architecture School of Paris-La Villette (1996), Andrialavidrazana’s education informs her ability to look at the world through three-dimensional sight, and to use images to create new forms of circulation. She began her career as a visual artist by extending her investigation of Madagascan burial structures to cities throughout the Global South – Auckland, Buenos Aires, Guangzhou, and Santiago, among others. The resulting series, d’Outre-Monde (2003), dealing with funereal traditions beside urban multiple shapes and dimensions, was awarded the HSBC Prize for Photography.

Evolving with a particular interest in dialogue and difference, the artist has consistently demonstrated an ethical commitment to countering the extraordinarily problematic roster of clichés that characterize “Northern” gazes on the Indian Ocean – one of the world’s earliest global economies. With the joint support of the Institut Français and the National Arts Council of South Africa, she built up her Echoes (from Indian Ocean) (2011-13) by drawing the contours of a plural singularity, while showing how deep and abiding the historical connections are between such far-flung places as Antananarivo, Mumbai and Durban.

Current works

Andrialavidrazana's recent series, Figures, is one of her most conceptually and contextually complex works. She takes maps as the starting point to discuss the many permutations of globalization in the 19th century, the age of empire building. Employing a methodology that combines photography, collage, drawing and text, this results in a pictorial narrative of movement, space and connectivity. Through the process of collecting, collating and repurposing objects, symbols, images and writing the work speaks to our identities as individuals but also to the process of nation building.

Her works have been widely exhibited. Venues include among others, on the African continent: Bamako Encounters, doual’art, Donwahi Foundation, Lagos Photo Festival ; Changjiang and Karachi biennials, Dhaka Art Summit, Para-Site, in Asia ; Herzliya Museum in the Middle East; PAC Milano, Kalmar Konstmuseum, Lyon and EVA Ireland’s Biennial, Warsaw MoMA, in Europe ; Fondation Clément in the Caribbean ; Aperture, Art Institute of Chicago, Ford Foundation, in the US.

More recent events include exhibitions at the Boghossian Foundation in Brussels, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.