At the end of rue Ferrère, a stone’s throw from the Chartrons quays, the stone arcades of the Entrepôt Lainé saw sugar, coffee and cocoa from the colonies pass through in the 19th century. Since 11 June 2026, the CAPC museum of contemporary art has been giving voice to that memory with Blackground: murmures des mornes, on view until 28 March 2027. Upstairs, the German artist Alexandra Bircken presents SomaSemaSoma until 3 January 2027. Two exhibitions, one ticket, and one of the most powerful cultural outings of the winter in Bordeaux.

Designed by the engineer Claude Deschamps, who also built the Pont de Pierre, the Entrepôt Lainé was used to store goods arriving from the Caribbean under customs bond before they were sold on. Bordeaux grew rich on this Atlantic trade. Over the 18th and early 19th centuries, the city fitted out around 500 slave-trading voyages. The pale stone façades of the Chartrons and the place de la Bourse still bear the mark of that wealth.

Today, the great nave with its brick vaults has housed contemporary art since the 1970s. The building is anything but neutral, and that is exactly what Blackground chooses to confront.

The “mornes” are the hills of the Caribbean islands where maroons, enslaved people who had fled the plantations, took refuge. The title states the intention, to listen to the voices of resistance rather than to the story told by the powerful. Conceived by Cédric Fauq, chief curator of the CAPC, and Salma Mochtari, the exhibition starts from a simple and dizzying idea. The abolition of 1848 did not erase the colonial system, which still marks lands, bodies and minds.

At the CAPC, the route is organised around the plantation and the monument. Among others, you will see works by Julien Creuzet, Josèfa Ntjam, Dominique White and Iris Kensmil. The curators made a clear choice, refusing to make a spectacle of violence and giving space instead to the forms of memory that official history left aside. You come out less overwhelmed than shaken, and keen to look at the quays differently.

An exhibition that spills beyond the museum walls

Blackground continues in other Bordeaux venues, each with its own angle.

• Frac MÉCA, facing the Garonne, with works about water and crossing.
• Musée d’Aquitaine, with works slipped into the heart of the permanent collections.
• Bibliothèque Mériadeck, with a section devoted to language, based on the writings of Maryse Condé, Angela Davis and Suzanne Roussi-Césaire.
• Zébra3 and Archives Bordeaux Métropole, with Simon Gabourg’s project on rubber growing, between Guadeloupe, France and Vietnam.

How long is Blackground on in Bordeaux?

Until 28 March 2027 at the CAPC. Dates may differ at the other venues, so it is best to check each venue’s website before you go.

Alexandra Bircken has worked in sculpture since the early 2000s. She combines soft and industrial materials, skin and car bodywork, to question what links our bodies to technology and to social structures. SomaSemaSoma brings together key works from her last decade, in a route designed by the curators Paul Bernard and Sandra Patron.

The visit feels like travelling through an organism, with rooms linked by thresholds and three families of bodies to meet, individual, social and “machined”. Some pieces look like the remains of vanished beings, others like prototypes from the future. It is a more physical than intellectual exhibition, and it speaks to contemporary art lovers and curious visitors alike.

Last weeks before it closes on 3 January 2027

Good to know, Sunday 3 January 2027, the last day of SomaSemaSoma, falls on the first Sunday of the month, when entry to the CAPC is free. Expect crowds that day, and choose a December morning if you want to enjoy the rooms in peace.

Cover photo: Thomon, CAPC voûtes, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons