About the artist

Born in 1987 in France and from a family originally from Madagascar, Elsa Rakoto spent her childhood between the Lyon region and Reunion Island. Connected by travels across the Indian Ocean, its island cultural roots have forged its abundant imagination and in the process of decolonization.


With a self-taught career after obtaining a literary baccalaureate in Visual Arts and Art History and after attending the Faculty of Art History and Modern Letters at the University of Lyon 2, her artistic practice visual arts evolved in alternative cultural circles, moving from photography to painting.


It was in 2020 that Elsa Rakoto became a painter, driven by the need to reread the world in these times of crisis. She is currently based in Lyon.
Parallelly involved in the Sawtche Afrofeminist Collective since 2017 with archiving work on black feminisms, Elsa Rakoto has made the promotion of Afrodiasporic links, community love, sorority as well as eco-Pan-Africanism the main milestones in her work .