Fondation H — Prix Paritana Turns Ten
- Apr 27
- 3 min read
Location: Fondation H, Antananarivo, Madagascar
Date: April 24 – October 17, 2026
Project: Collection show curated by Abdellah Karroum, solo by M'barek Bouhchichi, and the 10th Prix Paritana
Why it Matters: Madagascar's biggest contemporary art foundation opens its most ambitious season yet
Fondation H is a contemporary art foundation in Antananarivo, founded in 2017 by entrepreneur Hassanein Hiridjee. The building is 2,200 square metres, solar-powered, designed without air conditioning, and everything is free. The last two exhibitions alone brought in close to 200,000 visitors. This is not a small operation, and the new season makes that clear.
Two exhibitions opened on April 24. The first, Kabarin-javakanto, is a reading of the foundation's own collection by Moroccan-born curator Abdellah Karroum, who ran Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha from 2013 to 2021. He picked over fifty works by forty-one artists, and structured the whole thing around kabary, the Malagasy tradition of formal oratory. The show moves in three chapters, like a speech: an introduction, a dense central section where works are grouped in conversation, and a final room that opens up toward something bigger. The artist list is serious. El Anatsui, Ibrahim Mahama, Kapwani Kiwanga, Shahzia Sikander, Ghada Amer, Alighiero Boetti. Hiridjee himself points to Boetti as an unexpected thread: the Italian artist's embroidered maps sit surprisingly well next to more recent practices closer to Madagascar.
The second exhibition, Les mains des poètes [Poets' Hands], is a solo by Moroccan artist M'barek Bouhchichi. Before he made anything, he spent six weeks walking the streets of Antananarivo, going through the markets, looking for the people who make things. He found woodworkers, metalworkers, potters, weavers, silk and paper makers in Antananarivo, Antsirabe, and his native region of Imi n'Tatelt in Morocco. Every piece in the show was made by their hands together with his. Wood, metal, clay, silk, paper, sound. Bouhchichi is interested in a specific question: who decides what counts as art and what counts as craft? The line between the two was drawn by colonial categories, and he wants to know why it's still there. The exhibition also references sorabe, an Arabico-Malagasy script developed in the fifteenth century by the Antemoro community. Bouhchichi invited Malagasy designer Domi Sanji to create Matsaraba, a new contemporary typeface based on it, which runs through the whole show.
The same week, Fondation H announced the winners of the 10th Prix Paritana, the foundation's annual prize for artists from the Malagasy scene and its diaspora. This year's winner is Miangaly Elia Andriantsoa, with Finiavana Raharisandratana and Zo Andrianjafy Ramino-Ratsiravana as joint runners-up. The jury included N'Goné Fall, Bénédicte Alliot (Director of the Cité internationale des arts), and Fatma Kilani (Founder of La Boîte), among others. 52 applications came in. The prize has been running since 2017 and this edition comes with expanded support for both winners and runners-up.
Meanwhile in Paris, the foundation's Marais space is showing Soft Machines, Phantom Limbs by Ghanaian artist Priscilla Kennedy (until May 23), followed by a solo by Malagasy poet and visual artist Joey Aresoa opening June 11.
Both Antananarivo exhibitions run through October 17. Free entry, Tuesday to Saturday.
More info: fondation-h.com
