LES SOMME DE NOUS, 2024 | email info@lilahbenetti to request the FULL screener and/or EPK.

LES SOMME DE NOUS (The Sum Of Us)

Year: 2024

Duration: 8.06 minutes

Language: English, French, Wolof (English Subtitles)

LES SOMME DE NOUS is a contemplative audiovisual work by Lilah Benetti that reimagines identity beyond Western frameworks, tracing the entanglements of language, selfhood, and place. Developed over six months across Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Ghana, and Senegal, the work engages with the historical presence of gender non-conformity within traditional spiritual practices, situated within the complexities of contemporary political realities across these regions.

At its core, LES SOMME DE NOUS is shaped through quiet encounters, intimate interviews, and the textures of everyday life, from domestic interiors to sites of spiritual practice, foregrounding the role of non-men in sustaining cultural, spiritual, and social lineages. Presence is not positioned as spectacle, but as continuity and lived resistance.

Through layered sound and image, the work invites reflection rather than resolution. It asks how silenced voices might be honoured, who remains excluded from collective visions of freedom, and how diasporic communities might imagine futures that are more relational and inclusive. Rather than offering answers, LES SOMME DE NOUS holds space, allowing meaning to emerge through proximity, listening, and duration.

This work has been exhibited internationally across the USA, UK, Africa, and Australia, including presentations at Tate Britain, Art Gallery of New South Wales, IFC Center in New York City, and the Dakar Biennale.

This work draws from and contributes to BLACK AND BLUR, a living anarchive of memory and cultural survival, under the custodianship of Lilah Benetti and co-authored by many.

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Credits

ARTIST Lilah Benetti
SOUND DESIGN Reihara
FEATURING Togbe; Colonel Abdoulaye Ndiaye; Professor Serigne Mor Mbaye; Julien Kalipe; Raki Cis; Bachita Banasse; Khaoula Ksiksi
END CREDITS MUSIC Ndeye Seck; Raki Cis
FORMAT Single-channel digital video, HD colour, sound, 08:33; Original footage shot on analogue film and tape
SUBTITLES English (French available on request)
LOCATIONS Togo; Benin; Nigeria; Ghana; Senegal
SUPPORT Creative Victoria; Ian Potter Foundation; Ubuntu Australia; Black Rock Senegal; City of Melbourne

Selected Exhibitions

Tate Britain, History Reverberates: Portraits of Identity, UK (2025)
IFC Centre x Queer Art, NYC (2025)
NOT/NOWHERE, UK (2025)
Art Gallery of New South Wales, AUS (2025)