The exhibition, “Deflagrations”, is a tribute to a very singular creative process: that of children who, after having come into contact with death in situations of war or mass crimes, picked up coloured pencils to tell their stories.

In refugee camps, bombed cities, schools, health centres, and workshops, they created, traced, played, and also dreamed, taking possession of the universal and, at the same time, the infinitely personal language of graphic expression. They saw the rules that govern humankind destroyed, and yet, before us stands the full power of this process of drawing and within it, the seeds of resistance. Over the course of more than century, these images show us both sun and deflagration.

The exhibition presents over 150 drawings from museums, national and university libraries, international institutions and NGOs, as well as from the archives of psychiatrists, psychologists and war correspondents. Guests, artists and writers, alongside Françoise Héritier, offer as many echoes to these traces planted in history. Among them, we find Enki Bilal, a companion of the project since its inception and the artist associated with this exhibition.