As a starting point the painting La Blanche et la Noire by the French-Swiss painter Félix Vallotton (1913, Hahnloser Foundation collection, Villa Flora in Winterthur, Switzerland). A painting inspired by Manet's Olympia and Ingres' Odalisque à l'esclave, it depicts the Sapphic love between a sylph and a black woman. Unlike his predecessors, Vallotton gets rid of all exotic references. A two-voice dialogue emerges between two women reflecting on gender, race and colonialism.
LA BLANCHE ET LA NOIRE II
As a tableau vivant, the painting is recreated swapping roles while they dialogue in a conversation going through axtracts from ghanean writer Ama Ata Aidoo's book " Our Sister Killjoy"(1977) and poems by the African-American writer, feminist, lesbian and civil rights activist Audre Lorde, from her book of poetry "Black Unicorn"(1978), as well as of excerpts from her essays.
LA BLANCHE ET LA NOIRE III
LA BLANCHE ET LA NOIRE IV
LA BLANCHE ET LA NOIRE V