As part of the Saison Méditerranée led by the Institut français, the ICI team continues its companionship with guest curator Sonia Recasens, begun in 2024 with L’esprit du geste, the inaugural exhibition of the renovated spaces of ICI Léon. This time she accompanies its new project, which takes as its starting point the legends surrounding Aïcha Kandisha, in order to explore the many figures of ogresses who populate the imaginations of the Mediterranean basin and beyond.
The exhibition Le bal des Ogresses shifts the gaze from the fear inspired by Aïcha Kandisha toward what the stories that forged her myth reveal. Ogresses and goddesses, monstrous and seductive, nurturing and devouring, protective and malevolent: Aïcha Kandisha and her sister figures become the prism for an exploration of the intimate, the body and collective memory. These hybrid and transgressive creatures crystallise fears around the night, femininity and sexuality.