Lito Kattou at Frac des Pays de la Loire, Nantes

On the occasion of the exhibition Soothsayers, Lito Kattou presents a body of work comprising three sculptures and a new video installation. The Cypriot artist unfolds a fictional and sensorial universe in which the Soothsayers emerge—enigmatic, nomadic, and trans-temporal figures.

Wandering without fixed origin or destination, these soothsayers appear equipped with utilitarian objects—flowers, compasses, containers, tools—integrated into their garments, and accompanied by fragments of wings and copper feathers scattered across the ground.

Constructed in metal, these life-sized silhouettes form an inhabited landscape in which these entities gather, contemplate, and tend to remnants from migratory species—some endangered, others already vanished. At once symbols of hope, freedom, and spirituality, these fragments evoke both the fragility of living beings and the possibility of repair. Their metallic materiality suggests endurance and continuity.

In counterpoint, the video projection stages a desert landscape traversed by the artist’s digital double—another soothsayer figure. Generated from real-time data, the work unfolds as a fragmented narrative of existence and disappearance, rendering perceptible the ecological and social transformations at play in the Mediterranean region, particularly the growing threat of desertification.

With Soothsayers, Lito Kattou examines the interdependent relationships between humans, non-humans, technology, and the environment. The Soothsayers—at once oracles, guardians, and mediators—embody warning figures in the face of contemporary crises—climatic, political, and historical—while opening up the possibility of reimagined futures. The exhibition thus invites a rethinking of the ties between beings and territories in a world undergoing profound transformation.