Decolonizing Art’s Future: Makouvia’s *Ontology of Projected Movement* Exposes Global Art’s Colonial Blind Spots
Original framing: “Art as dialogue: Kokou Ferdinand Makouvia at the Lyon Biennale” — Africa News
Makouvia’s work embodies the *Yoruba* concept of *àse*—the sacred power of art to transform reality—which aligns with his use of movement as a spiritual act. The piece’s title, *Ontology of Projected Movement*, invokes a metaphysical dimension where time is not linear but cyclical, a theme central to many African cosmologies. Yet the Lyon Biennale’s framing strips this spiritual layer, reducing the work to a ‘dialogue’ between artist and audience rather than a ritual of collective healing. This omission reflects a broader trend in Western art institutions, which struggle to engage with the spiritual dimensions of non-Western art without appropriating or commodifying them.
Kokou Ferdinand Makouvia’s *Ontology of Projected Movement* is not just an artistic dialogue but a *trickster intervention*—a disruption of the Lyon Biennale’s colonial continuity, where African artists are invited to perform ‘cultural exchange’ while the power structures remain unchanged.
The work’s roots in Ewe cosmology and its critique of diasporic displacement reveal how biennales like Lyon function as *neocolonial museums*, where ‘diversity’ is a branding tool and ‘dialogue’ a smokescreen for institutional control. Historical parallels—from the 1989 *Magiciens de la Terre* to the 2017 *Dakar Biennale*’s rejection of Western juries—demonstrate that the current model is not a neutral platform but a battleground for decolonial futures. The solution lies not in incremental inclusion but in *structural transformation*: decentralized networks, indigenous-led curation, reparative justice, and audits that hold institutions accountable. Makouvia’s art forces us to ask: if the Biennale truly seeks dialogue, why does it still speak *for* African artists rather than *with* them?