Born in 1986 in Bouaké and a descendant of the Beninese King Béhanzin, Roméo Mivekannin creates work that reexamines European representations of Black subjects in painting and photography. Known for his paintings on canvas that blend acrylic and mud elixir, he inserts himself into historical scenes through self-portraiture to question their construction and the issues they raise.

The artist critically analyzes the ethnographic exhibitions of the 19th and 20th centuries, in which non-European people were presented as objects of curiosity. He highlights the persistence of this legacy in museums, as well as the silent violence of the photographs produced in Paris during that era.

For the exhibition, Mivekannin has created four metal sculptures in the form of enclosed aviaries, representing the Trocadéro Museum of Ethnography, the west wing of the Palais de Chaillot, the Musée de la Porte Dorée, and the Musée du Quai Branly–Jacques Chirac. Created in collaboration with Ivorian blacksmiths in Abidjan, these aviaries embody a system of symbolic confinement.

It also features fourteen large canvases inspired by photographs from the museum’s collection: the first revisits a group exhibition at the Trocadéro, while the others reinterpret exhibitions that took place at the Champ de Mars, the Jardin d’Acclimatation, and the Folies Bergère. The original photographs will be visible through a two-way mirror, inviting visitors to reflect on their own position as viewers.