At the Palais d’Iéna, the Italian fashion house brings together film, photography, sculpture, literature and performance in a multidisciplinary exhibition exploring representation and memory.

For Art Basel Paris 2026, Miu Miu presents Geste de Consolation, a multidisciplinary project conceived by French filmmaker Alice Diop. Installed at the Palais d’Iéna from 21 to 25 October, the exhibition brings together an international group of artists, writers and performers to explore the representation of Black women, the persistence of historical narratives and the possibilities of collective healing.

The project marks Miu Miu’s third year as the Official Partner of Art Basel Paris’s Public Program, continuing the fashion house’s engagement with contemporary art and its interest in creating platforms for women’s voices. Rather than approaching the relationship between fashion and art through aesthetics alone, Geste de Consolation places artistic expression within a broader conversation about identity, visibility and cultural memory.

Known for her documentary and feature films examining questions of identity, migration and colonial history, Diop brings her cinematic practice into the exhibition space. Geste de Consolation also marks her first exhibition, extending ideas developed in Fragments for Venus, her contribution to Miu Miu’s Women’s Tales series in 2025.

At its centre is an examination of how Black women have been represented throughout art history, and how these representations continue to inform contemporary understandings of femininity and identity. Diop approaches this history not solely through critique, but through the possibility of restoration: an act of recognition that brings together artistic practices capable of challenging inherited narratives and proposing alternative ways of seeing.

The exhibition features works by South African visual activist and photographer Zanele Muholi, American quiltmaker Mary Lee Bendolph and artist Simone Leigh, among others. Leigh’s monumental bronze sculpture Sentinel (Mami Wata) (2020–21) forms a culminating point within the exhibition, bringing questions of representation, ancestry and the visibility of Black women into focus. Diop’s own moving-image work appears alongside literary contributions from Audre Lorde, Zora Neale Hurston, June Jordan, Marie NDiaye and Zadie Smith. Performances by Nadia Beugré, Angel Bat Dawid and Sistazz of the Nitty-Gritty further expand the project’s dialogue between image, sound, movement and text.

These varied practices are brought together through a curatorial approach that privileges exchange over categorisation. Photography, sculpture, literature and performance become complementary forms of expression, each offering a different means of addressing histories of exclusion while imagining possibilities for connection and renewal. The exhibition consequently operates as more than a presentation of individual works: it proposes an environment in which artistic practices can respond to one another across disciplines and cultural contexts.

The choice of Diop reflects Miu Miu’s sustained interest in women’s narratives and the cultural frameworks through which they are understood. Through its Women’s Tales film series and wider cultural partnerships, the house has developed an approach that places female creativity at the centre of its engagement with contemporary culture.

The setting is equally significant. Designed by architect Auguste Perret, the Palais d’Iéna is a landmark of modernist architecture and a familiar address for Miu Miu’s runway presentations. During Art Basel Paris, the building becomes a space for the artistic activation staged during the fair.

As the boundaries between fashion, art and cultural institutions continue to evolve, Geste de Consolation offers a considered example of how these relationships can support artistic production and public engagement.

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Image: portrait by Brigitte Lacombe; courtesy of MIU MIU