There are traditions one can only approach by learning to listen.
Stories that reveal themselves only to those willing to slow down, to question, to unlearn.
Vodoun is one of them.

Born from a desire for respectful transmission, this text is rooted in a lived experience — an immersive artistic residency in Ouidah, Benin, in January 2020. A few weeks before the world shut down, a group of artists allowed themselves to be moved by another way of inhabiting reality. What we received, we chose not to reproduce. We chose to listen, to welcome its resonances.

This manifesto is the result of that passage. It does not claim to explain Vodoun, much less to fix it in place. It bears witness to a living philosophy, a wisdom in motion, a connection to the world that engages both memory and the body, dreams and gestures.

Conceived as a space where art, storytelling, and silence coexist, Between Worlds is an invitation to slow down. To learn how to see again. To recognize, in the shadows of the obvious, the invisible forces that bind us together.

Through this project, we sought to chart an ethical path between homage and retreat, creation and remembrance. This book is a trace of that path. If the deities allow, other forms will follow.

In the meantime, here is what silence has left behind.

— Cécile, Curator
Ouidah – Paris – Hong Kong