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Hope, a story of explorers & dream catchers
Hope, an incredible immersion in the heart of Uganda’s lush nature, tells Valentine’s encounter story with the Habinyanja family’s gorillas. A film in a diary form.
A journey away from the cage sadness, where infinite landscapes, traditional rhythms and syncopated dances follow one another. And of course: Ivo. An allegory of Ivo, free, happy, and surrounded by his family.
For the past 4 years, Ivo became in turn Moroccan, South African, and Tanzanian through successive exhibitions. But with Hope, La Maison Valmont takes its visitors much further. A step further in the impenetrable Bwindi Forest discovery; the only place in the world where the three great primates, mountain gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans, live together on the same territory. A step further in this country discovery and its often-unknown culture, through unique colours, landscapes, sounds and fabrics. Closer to its women, its men, and their traditions.
Hope, like a young girl’s hope and desire for freedom. Hope, like a father’s desire to see the spark in her eyes that the gorilla in the cage was missing.
Hope, the film exhibition at La Maison Valmont
First unveiled in Seoul during the Ivo in Tanzania exhibition, Hope, the movie, will be shown on May 16th, 2023. Not in one place, but in a simultaneous exhibition at Les Maisons Valmont. From Berlin, Munich, Paris, Madrid, New York to Milan, Ivo will be screened freely on every side of the globe. Hope, an emotional short film, tells the moving story of a 17-year-old girl, Valentine Guillon, travelling to Uganda to meet the gorilla in its natural habitat.
Ivo, an angular gorilla met a few years ago during a visit to the Berlin Zoo. Ivo, who was a source of both wonder and emotion for Valentine during a father-daughter trip in 2018. A young girl’s wish came from this Berlin visit to see the elegant animal released from captivity. A father’s desire to imagine the impossible to make him live beyond all cages. In this, Hope transforms Ivo’s freedom, and her message goes far beyond Uganda.
From Berlin’s cramped cage to the impenetrable Bwindi Forest, Ivo returns to Berlin and demonstrates that through creativity it is sometimes only a step from captivity to freedom.
The cage, Didier Guillon’s allegory
Hope exhibition goes along with the iconic cages designed by Didier Guillon, two to be precise. The first one, small, takes up Ivo’s motifs from The Elegant Symmetry of the Gorilla. The cubic motif in primary colours is expressed joyfully, like a nose-thumbing at the object it covers. The second cage is built in opposition to the first one, although they are complementary. Large, it is adorned with an infinite number of Ivo’s drawn in a single, strong, and straightforward line, thus creating an interlacing of White is Black branches. Like an echo of the bewitching Bwindi Forest.
Made of assembled cardboard, they reflect two of La Maison Valmont’s values: beauty and sustainability.
