The Zansèt Yo exhibition at Bode is a deeply personal and cultural act of remembrance by artist M. Florine Démosthène. Taking its title from the Haitian Creole word for “ancestors,” the exhibition weaves Caribbean and West African spiritual traditions into the language of contemporary art.
Démosthène’s figures, crafted on paper with ink, pigment, and glitter, reveal the multifaceted meanings of the body: earthly yet cosmic, fragile yet transformative. Plural bodies sometimes merge into a single entity or separate to create new forms. These images reference the Marasa concept from Haitian Vodou, symbolizing sacred twinship—a duality that mediates between the known and the unknown.
In the artist’s own words:
“Twins are considered mediators between the earthly and the spiritual. I connect this duality to the transcendent nature of love, aiming to express how we are both familiar and foreign to ourselves and others.”
Raised between the US, Haiti, and New York, Démosthène channels the layered legacies of different geographies through the poetic language of the body. Her figures are not solitary; they intertwine, multiply, and give life. This process positions the body not merely as a subject but as a vessel connecting ancestors, cosmic energies, and historical memory.
Zansèt Yo is both a reflection of the artist’s multinational, multilayered identity and a powerful visualization of collective memory and intergenerational spiritual bonds.
📍 Bode, Berlin
🗓️ On view through October 19, 2025
