Miu Miu returns to Art Basel Paris for the third consecutive year as Public Program Official Partner, presenting Geste de Consolation (Gesture of Consolation), a major multidisciplinary commission conceived by French filmmaker Alice Diop.
Staged at the Palais d’Iéna, the project brings together film, photography, sculpture, poetry, dance, music and live performance in an exploration of Black women’s representation, memory and the possibility of artistic repair.
Invited by Miuccia Prada, Diop extends a dialogue begun with Fragments for Venus, her 2025 contribution to Miu Miu Women’s Tales, which examined the representation of Black women and the enduring influence of historical imagery. Marking Diop’s first foray into exhibition-making, Geste de Consolation translates her cinematic approach into an immersive, four-part experience in which visitors move between interconnected spaces.
“I want my curation to centre on acts of consolation conceived by Black women artists, each active in their own discipline, to repair the fetishising gaze to which centuries of art history have confined us,” says Diop.
The journey opens with a photograph by South African artist Zanele Muholi, followed by a two-screen video installation featuring archival imagery and film excerpts that have shaped Diop’s perspective. Visitors then enter Chambre à soi, a living room and library furnished with richly coloured carpets featuring a motif by artist Mary Lee Bendolph. Making books that have informed Diop’s intellectual life accessible to the public, the space offers a portrait of a Black woman thinking in the 21st century.
At the exhibition’s centre, a performance arena hosts readings from writers including Audre Lorde, Zora Neale Hurston, June Jordan, Marie Ndiaye and Zadie Smith. The programme also features an adaptation of Ivorian choreographer Nadia Beugré’s Prophétique, performed by five dancers, alongside music by Chicago composer Angel Bat Dawid and her ensemble, Sistazz of the Nitty-Gritty.
The experience culminates in Simone Leigh’s monumental bronze sculpture Sentinel (Mami Wata). Standing nearly five metres tall, the elongated female figure is encircled by a serpent and draws on the powerful West African water spirit whose image has travelled across Africa and its diasporas.
Conceived as a cinematic montage, the exhibition uses architecture, sound and spectatorship to connect its diverse elements, offering a journey of remembrance and repair. The commission continues Miu Miu’s cultural partnership with Art Basel Paris, following Goshka Macuga’s Tales & Tellers in 2024 and Helen Marten’s 30 Blizzards in 2025.
Geste de Consolation is open to the public at the Palais d’Iéna from today until the 25th of October. Guided-tour registration is available through miumiu.com.
