Press release
For the first edition of Africa Basel dedicated exclusively to contemporary African art and its diaspora, Galerie Dix9 is pleased to present Kwama Frigaux, a French artist of Ghanaian descent. Born in 1993, Kwama collects the wastes that are everywhere in our intimate and collect ive lives - safety glass, plastic packaging, food grade aluminum, empty medication blister packs - to turn them into sensitive objects that question us. Washed, painted and assembled, these wastes, sometimes bearing traumatic stories, are transformed into sculptures, luminescent rugs, malleable stained glass, and installat ions. The arrangement of colors, playing with the translucent or opaque parts of the materials, the work of cutting and assembling, shifts the perspective we had on this waste and reconfigures a future for it, a potential evocative of other objects, other possible uses and functions that are more reparative of the world around us.
Of metal and silk
Text by Aby Gaye-Duparc
Curator, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain
“Women have always collected things and saved and recycled them, because leftovers
yielded nourishment in new forms.” Miriam Schapiro
Kwama Frigaux’s works form intricate constellations, rich in color and meaning, made from small fragments of daily life. Echoing the quilts and assemblages of Betye Saar and Annette Messager, her compositions reflect both intimate and societal portraits, engaging with themes of memory, care, and vulnerability. Behind these luminous installations lies a long, meticulous process of collecting, sort ing, and cleaning materials—medicine blisters, plastic bottles, shards of glass.
Her practice blurs the line between fine and decorative arts, evoking textiles, jewelry, and stained glass. Though seemingly non-functional, her large metallic drapes made of pill blisters can be shaped to suit their environment, transforming space. This connection to textiles is not only formal, but also procedural: collect ing demands slowness, rigor, repetition, and bodily engagement—like weaving. A lover of Byzantine mosaics and medieval stained glass, Frigaux weaves a play of light, transparency, and color into each piece. When observed closely, these luminous fragments form grid-like texts, offering a language of their own—a visual writing through reassembled fragments.
Frigaux pays deep attention to overlooked remnants. Once collected, the materials are cut, sewn, woven, embroidered, painted, and assembled into new constellations. Collecting becomes a political act—preserving and repairing memory. This is especially evident in her recent pieces, which take the form of protective objects: a silk duvet and cushions filled with pill blister residues. Yet the softness of silk hides a fragile balance, seemingly pierced by the metallic shards within.
During a recent research stay at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi, Ghana, Frigaux explored ancestral materials—part icularly beads crafted from fragments of colored glass bottles. Inheritors of centuries-old t rade across West and North Africa, these Ghanaian glass beads open new paths of reflection on the historic and economic dimensions of materials, inaugurating a new chapter in her practice. At KNUST, where the art department encourages experimental and gift-based creation, art ists challenge the market-based value of materials—an ethos fully aligned with Frigaux’s vision.