University libraries

The exhibition “Women,” presented by the UNESCO Chair in International Communication, GRESEC, and the Medicine and Pharmacy Library, brings together five artists whose works explore the female body as a space of memory, spirituality, and creation. In the selected works, the body does not appear as an object of observation, but as a subject of expression: a body that speaks, remembers, asserts itself, and reconnects with the earth.

Ivorian artist Mamadou Ballo is the special guest of this artistic program. He will be at the University of Grenoble Alpes from April 15 to 24, 2026, to attend the exhibition opening, lead a participatory creative workshop, and engage with students and members of the institution. His visit was made possible through a collaboration between the UNESCO Chair in International Communication at UGA and the Ministry of Culture of Côte d’Ivoire. Mamadou Ballo’s works, consisting primarily of paintings and sculptures, explore sensory realities through everyday objects—particularly recycled ones—to evoke the female body as a source of life. Through contemporary art, the exhibition presents works that place us at the intersection of art and ancestral heritage. Mamadou, for example, draws on ancestral knowledge in his contemporary artistic practice, which centers on ecological and environmental concerns.
The creations of these artists, hailing from Latin America and Africa, do not separate the body, the territory, and knowledge, and establish connections with other living beings. Meanwhile, the works of Mamadou, Kaiwino, Daiara, and Jaider invite us to explore other ways of engaging with the environment.

Exhibition opening Friday, April 17 at 12 p.m.