Paper short abstract:

Committed study here is intended to show the sources of inspiration of contemporary urban artists especially in relation to the complexity of what is referred to as the rural ‟spaces", through two case studies.

Paper long abstract:

The process of globalization has had impact in Africa. This required countries to accelerate their urbanization to comply with the demographic change that, is necessary to them and the ‟standard" development driven by the United Nations. This begat the rural exodus which causing the increase of the urban population. These newcomers have never formally broken with their origins in terms of cultural reminiscences and in identifying to certain social practices. Among this population, there are artists who, although having obviously grown in urban context are constantly inspired to express themselves, from the realities of these rural areas. In Benin, the State went to the obvious that it could not assure all alone, started the decentralization movement that offers a few possibilities for initiatives at the base. That is the case of Porto-Novo in cooperation with Cergy Pontoise and initiated the project Éclosion Urbaine which has highlighted the urbanization of a pocket of rural space and that has led artists to be inspired by this particular environment to deploy their contemporary production in relation to a secular spatial organization and specific social practices.

The first is the new experience in Benin, which allows showing that the interaction between urban contemporary artists and rural social practices can be done in exclusively urban context. The second is devoted to a long experience of Magou Amédée in his quest to associate the rural context to a contemporary production.