Amours amitiés affinités — S’entre-tenir — Maison populaire — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Starts tomorrow: May 13 → July 10, 2026

With Zoé Bernardi, Anne Cutaia & Kiddy Smile, Béatrice Duport, Donna Gottschalk, the collective Greater Paris, Dominique Mathieu, Paul B. Preciado & Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, the collective Quand les Lesbiennes se Font du Cinéma, Hélio Volana. As part of the curatorial residency of Line Gigs and Fanny Testas.

In Staying With the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene (2016), Donna Haraway invites us to “Make kin, not babies!” She proposes rethinking kinship beyond biological ties by expanding the notion of “family” to include other human beings as well as other species. In response to multiple crises ecological, social, economic, democratic Haraway imagines alternative forms of relation, inheritance, and transmission.

This second chapter explores these new forms of connection grounded in respect, trust, listening, mutual aid, and shared resources. We are interested in the ways friendships evolve within contemporary affinity based organisations: activist, feminist, transfeminist, queer circles, non mixed spaces, and more.

Donna Gottschalk, Myla in Mary’s Dress, 1973 — Tirage gélatino-argentique sur papier Courtesy de l’artiste © DR

These contexts function as laboratories where new forms of solidarity, care, and unconditional hospitality are being reinvented. By addressing the notion of consent an essential practice of friendship we question processes of emancipation from assigned relationships especially the biological family in order to make room for others: those who form a “chosen family.”

The exhibition brings together photographs (Donna Gottschalk & Zoé Bernardi), textile works and sculptures (Hélio Volana, Béatrice Duport), installations (Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster & Paul B. Preciado, La collective Greater Paris), and films (Kiddy Smile & Anne Cutaia, the collective Quand les Lesbiennes se Font du Cinéma). These works share a common intention: to document, narrate, transmit, and make visible the existence of these chosen families.

S’entre-tenir presents necessary examples and acts of courage for inventing new ways of relating.

Line Gigs and Fanny Testas

Hélio Volana, Masina Mboty, 2026 — Sculpture, kibaï (scèptre rituel en bois sacré), épines de Gleditsia Triacanthos, ruban de satin Courtesy de l’artiste © DR

About the cycle Love Friendships Affinities, presented in 2026 at the Centre d’art de La Maison Populaire in Montreuil:

At a time when all our resources seem to be running dry, one feeling remains infinitely renewable: love. Affinities, filiations, and alliances can move mountains. Friendships help us resist the isolation that paralyses and weakens us. Relationships allow us to hold together, to sustain one another. All of the invited artists actively operate within circles of friendship that have influenced and shaped their practices. The works presented speak about the ways they organise themselves to work and form a “team.” Their approach follows a social and mental “eco logic” that generates modes of artistic production nourished by long term commitments. It is a patient weaving of attention, loyalty, and solidarity. Creating together then becomes both a way of resisting and a space for personal and collective fulfilment. It is no longer entirely clear whether artistic forms emerge from friendships or whether friendships themselves shape those forms. What remains certain alongside them is that our lives, our works, our creations depend on those of others and that revealing these interdependencies is an eminently political gesture. Amitiés Amours Affinités unfolds like an alternative tale in which art emerges from within relationships themselves. Inviting one’s friends to participate, supporting them, encouraging them, making them visible also means affirming that growing and organising together can constitute a radical stance. The cycle brings together historical and contemporary works, archives, performances, and joyful events that bear witness to the affective ties within these communities. Porous by nature, the exhibitions and works respond to one another. They provoke a collision of imaginaries, tools, and forms in order to create a non smooth, heterogeneous, and living whole reflecting the texture of our daily lives. Line Gigs & Fanny Testas invite us to accompany them in the search for definitions throughout the three exhibitions and events, ranging from the most intimate friendships to the most ambitious artistic movements.

Chapter 1 from 21 January to 11 April 2026 — Chapter 2 from 13 May to 10 July 2026 — Chapter 3 from 23 September to 12 December 2026 — Curated by: Line Gigs & Fanny Testas — Graphic design: Studio Kiösk — Digital creation residency: H·Alix Sanyas — Scenographic design: Dominique Mathieu