Sacatar proudly joins the Year of France in Brazil with a residency session fully shaped by French partnerships. Two artists—François Dufeil and Louise Mutrel—participate through Sacatar’s ongoing collaboration with the Fondation des Artistes, now in its third year.

This session also marks the launch of the Bahian chapter of I Am a Black Ocean, a multidisciplinary and transnational project conceived by Sacatar Fellow Beya Gille Gacha in collaboration with curator and composer Salimata Diop. The project brings together artists from France, Senegal, and Brazil—including Aline Motta, Nathalie Vairac, and Shai Andrade—in a shared exploration of Black identity, memory, and spiritual resistance.

Shai Andrade’s participation is made possible through the support of SECULT (Secretary of Culture of the State of Bahia), as part of its Apoio a Ações Continuadas program.

Also supporting the I Am a Black Ocean project are Pivô Salvador and the Consulate of France in Recife.

These artists will be in residence at the Instituto Sacatar from September 1 to November 3, 2025 (9 weeks)

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Aline Motta
Multidisciplinary Arts
Brazil
Year of France in Brazil – I Am a Black Ocean

Aline Motta (b. 1974, Rio de Janeiro) is a visual artist and writer whose multidisciplinary practice spans photography, video, installation, performance, and collage. Her work explores the silences and erasures within her family history caused by colonialism, combining archival research, fieldwork, and oral history with speculative and poetic approaches to reimagine lost or hidden narratives. Engaging with themes of diaspora, identity, and belonging, Motta bridges personal and collective memory, blurring the boundaries between documentary and poetic fiction.

She has participated in major biennials and triennials, including Sharjah (2023), São Paulo (2023), Coimbra (2024), Stellenbosch (2025), and Trondheim (2025). Her work has been exhibited at institutions such as MoMA, the New Museum, Centre Pompidou-Metz, MASP, MALBA, Centro Cultural Kirchner, Rencontres d’Arles, MAR, and MAM-Rio. Her book A Água É uma Máquina do Tempo (Water is a Time Machine) was a finalist for the 2023 Jabuti Award.

While in residence at Sacatar, Motta is developing scripts for the portions of Water is a Time Machine that have not yet been adapted for film.The existing 30-minute film adaptation will be expanded into a planned 70-minute feature. Central to both the book and the film is the story of her great-great-grandmother, Ambrosina Cafezeiro, born in Bahia in 1857 and deceased in Rio de Janeiro in 1894. Archival records suggest Ambrosina may have been born in Salvador or the Recôncavo region, possibly in the city of Jaguaripe. The proximity of Itaparica to these locations opens up new possibilities for research and artistic development during the residency. Aline is one of the four artists in this session whose residency is made possible through Sacatar’s support of the project I Am a Black Ocean, part of the Year of France in Brazil.

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François Dufeil
Visual Arts
France
Fondation des Artistes

François Dufeil (b. 1987) is a visual artist who creates “tool-sculptures”—hybrid works assembled from collected industrial waste and transformed into biomorphic forms. These sculptures are activated through performances that invite collaboration: musicians, painters, ceramicists, and even cooks engage with them using their own tools and practices, turning the works into catalysts for collective creation and transmission of artisanal and other forms of knowledge.

Dufeil’s work has been exhibited at institutions including the Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Angers, Musée d’Art Contemporain de Lyon, Les Brasseurs in Liège, La Graineterie – Centre d’Art Contemporain, FRAC des Pays de la Loire, Le Carré – Scène nationale in Château-Gontier, MAC VAL, and Gallery Chosun in Seoul. He has also participated in residencies at the Centre d’Art Contemporain du Parc Saint Léger, Moly-Sabata / Fondation Albert Gleizes, La Condition Publique, among others.

During his residency at Sacatar, Dufeil will focus on producing study drawings for sculpture-percussion instruments. His research will also explore the work of luthiers in Salvador and surrounding regions, fostering exchanges around their knowledge, techniques, and sounds.

François is one of two artists in this session whose residency is made possible through Sacatar’s partnership with the Fondation des Artistes

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Louise Mutrel
Photography
France
Fondation des Artistes

Born in 1992, Louise Mutrel is a French visual artist and photographer whose work embraces a saturated, pop-inspired photographic aesthetic. While she moves beyond traditional photographic codes, she resists full reliance on digital processes, instead favoring analog and mechanical techniques. Since 2018, she has pursued ongoing research in Japan on dekotora—extravagantly decorated trucks that blend folkloric and popular aesthetics.

Mutrel is a graduate of HEAR and the École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie in Arles. In 2024, she was named a laureate of Villa Kujoyama. Her work has been exhibited at institutions including Frac Bretagne, Bozar in Brussels, the Triennale Art et Industrie, and Voyage à Nantes.

During her residency at Sacatar, Mutrel will carry out a photographic exploration of Salvador’s car and motorcycle culture, focusing on phenomena such as car gatherings, carros-pipa (water trucks), and paredões—vehicles equipped with massive sound systems used during street events. The city’s vibrant motorcycle scene, likewise marked by a strong local identity, is another central element of her research.

Louise is one of two artists in this session whose residency is made possible through Sacatar’s partnership with the Fondation des Artistes.

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Nathalie Vairac
Multidisciplinary Arts
France
Year of France in Brazil – I Am a Black Ocean

After a 30-year career as an actress, French artist Nathalie Vairac—of Indo-Guadeloupean heritage—has recently shifted her practice toward performative gestures. She now embraces transdisciplinary installations that merge performance, ritual, and visual art, exploring her multiple heritages while activating concepts such as intimacy and the unfinished. Her work is also informed by years of training in psychoanalysis and therapeutic healing.

In 2018, she founded Compagnie La Lune Nouvelle in Dakar. Vairac has performed in landmark exhibitions, including Mutikkappatata at RAW Material Company, Dakar (2024), and Les Restes Suprêmes at the Museum of Black Civilisations, Dakar (2022). She lives and works in Dakar, Senegal.

During her residency at Sacatar, Vairac will continue her research into the intersection of the visible and invisible as a space of resistance. Through movement, she seeks new ways of embodying ancestral memory. She also hopes to engage with Candomblé as part of this exploration. Nathalie is one of four artists in this session whose residency is made possible through Sacatar’s support of the project I Am a Black Ocean, part of the Year of France in Brazil.

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Salimata Diop
Multidisciplinary Arts
Senegal
Year of France in Brazil – I Am a Black Ocean

Salimata Diop is a curator, art critic, and composer. Based between France and Senegal, she served as Artistic Director of the 2024 Dak’Art Biennale. Career highlights include directing the first three editions of the AKAA contemporary art fair in Paris and co-founding the MuPho photography museum in Saint-Louis, Senegal. In 2024, she was named one of Jeune Afrique’s “50 Champions of Culture.”

Her creative practice merges writing and music composition to explore the narratives and memories of African and diasporic experiences. Rooted in improvisation, her musical process evolves from solo piano sessions into collaborative dialogues with other performers and artists. These acoustic explorations often intersect with digital composition, using tools such as Ableton Live. Whether through text or sound, Diop’s work seeks to create resonant spaces for encounter, reflection, and healing.

During her residency at Sacatar, as part of the project I Am a Black Ocean, Diop assumes a dual role: co-curator—alongside artist Beya Gille Gacha and Nathalie Vairac—and composer/pianist. As curator, she continues her long-term research on the artist’s studio, developing a typology shaped by 15 years of encounters with African and Afro-diasporic creators. As a musician, she will accompany performances and rituals, weaving music into the harmonic and vibratory thread of the project’s collective “temple” of creation and healing.

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Shai Andrade
Multidisciplinary Arts
Brazil
SECULT and Year of France in Brazil – I Am a Black Ocean

Shai Andrade (b. 1992) is a multidisciplinary artist from Bahia. Her practice investigates matriarchal memory, identity, and Afro-diasporic spirituality through photography, video performance, and biographical objects. Drawing on personal narratives that intersect with collective memory, she builds a body of work focused on genealogy and the reconstruction of stories—exploring the relationships between the intimate, the ancestral, and the political.

Andrade holds a degree in Arts, with a focus in Cinema, from the Federal University of Bahia. She has participated in residencies in Mexico (through the Flotar curatorial platform) and in Luanda, where she presented her series Oráculo da Memória (Oracle of Memory). Her work has been shown in group exhibitions including Afro-brasilidade (FGV, Rio de Janeiro, 2025) and Ô Abre Alas (Maison de la Photographie, French Guiana, 2025). In 2023, she held her first solo exhibition, Oráculo da Memória, presented at Galeria Verve (São Paulo, 2023) and at the Goethe-Institut Bahia (Salvador, 2024). Her film Assentamento was selected in 2022 for the Panorama Internacional Coisa de Cinema and Encontro de Cinema Negro Zózimo Bulbul festivals.

At Sacatar, Andrade seeks to reclaim and reinvent an Afro-religious heritage that has been silenced within her family. She will deepen her experimentation with clay and ceramics, creating works that combine sculpture, performance, and photography. Her goal is to explore the body, gesture, and natural elements as vehicles to access, express, and transform memory.

Shai Andrade’s residency is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Secretary of Culture of the State of Bahia, through the Apoio a Ações Continuadas of the Fundo de Cultura da Secretaria de Cultura do Estado da Bahia (SECULT).