Rubis Group endowment fund for artistic and social projects

OF SOUL AND JOY – WORKSHOP IN MOROCCO Since 2018, the @ofsoulandjoy project has been running collaborative workshops to introduce photographic practice and provide social and artistic mentoring to young people from the township of Thokoza and surrounding areas of Johannesburg, South Africa. In 2025, the programme extends its action to Morocco and opens up a dialogue between the two countries through photography. At the Sidi Bernoussi orphanage (Casablanca), twenty children will discover photography through a series of workshops, led by Of Soul and Joy project manager and South-African photographer Jabulani Dhlamini and the Moroccan photographers Marouane Beslem (@marouanebeslem) and Abdelhamid Belahmidi (@h8mid). Marouane Beslem works between photography, video, and sound recording, examining the layers of contemporary Moroccan identity. Abdelhamid Belahmidi, a Moroccan self-taught conceptual and documentary photographer based in Casablanca, uses photography to artistically express the invisibility of his lived experiences. © Jabulani Dhlamini #rubismecenat #ofsoulandjoy #photography

NDAO HANAVAO – MADAGASCAR Let’s take a look back at @ndaohanavaoproject ’s latest workshop! ⁠ In May, the lab teamed up with Malagasy visual artist @richianny_ratovo for a special workshop on seaweed paper, a sustainable material developed at Ndao Hanavao in collaboration with guest designer @samueltomatis ⁠ The French designer has been working closely with the lab’s participants, pioneering new techniques to transform invasive algae into usable paper. This time, they explored this new material as an artistic tool with @richianny_ratovo Stay tuned, as @richianny_ratovo and the lab’s participants are currently producing a collaborative artwork, soon to be showed at the @ndaohanavaoproject ’s exhibition at @tanadesignweek! #rubismecenat #ndaohanavao #socialdesign #sustainabledesign #sustainability #innovation #ecodesign #workshops #creativeworkshop #madagascar #artpatron #artprofessionnals #tanadesignweek

OF SOUL AND JOY – SOUTH AFRICA The @ofsoulandjoy project extends its transformative work into rural KwaZulu-Natal! From 26 March to 6 April 2025, 6 Of Soul and Joy photographers and mentors, including 4 former students, travelled to Nkandla, in the rural region of KwaZulu-Natal, to provide some thirty young people with photography skills. Initially based in the township of Thokoza (Johannesburg), the photography mentoring project initiated a two-week program focusing on visual storytelling, both as an artistic practice and a potential career path. The Nkandla-based program also presents a unique opportunity for OSJ alumni to serve as mentors, completing the full circle of education, leadership, and empowerment. These workshops apply the project’s pedagogy centered around empowerment through art, and bring essential creative skills to rural areas, where educational and employment opportunities for young people are often limited, and where creative education can transform individuals and whole communities. © Fuwe Molefe #rubismecenat #photography #southafrica #ofsoulandjoy

SUPPORT FOR ARTISTIC CREATION – GRANT FOR FRENCH CARIBBEAN AND AMAZONIAN CONTEMPORARY CREATION Don’t miss out on Jordan Beal’s solo show at the unRepresented salon by @approcheparis (April 4-6, Paris). A French photographer from Martinique, Jordan Beal (@danbeal_) is the first laureate of the grant for French Caribbean and Amazonian creation, launched by Rubis Mécénat, @lastationculturelle and unRepresented by @approcheparis. As a photographer exploring the boundaries of the medium, Jordan Beal develops a body of work where the image becomes a space for a sensitive experience of the island territory. His approach seeks to go beyond the artificial divide between nature and culture. By deliberately damaging his negatives and prints through the action of corrosive substances and fluids, notably seawater, he moves towards a rupture with the idea of a sovereign human subject to reveal the essence of the image. Anchored in his “island-ness,” his work explores the notions of horizon and relationship. Through various interventions, Jordan Beal co-constructs hybrid works with non-human agents, challenging traditional perspective and inviting a multi-layered reading of the landscape. For unRepresented, Jordan Beal presents a selection of images from his Corrosion series, initiated during a residency at Tropiques Atrium. These altered photographs, where elemental motifs emerge, reveal a space where temporalities overlap, where the elsewhere and the here intertwine. Crédits : Grégory Copitet / Jordan Beal #rubismecenat #supportforartisticcreation #artpatron #artcurator #artprofessionnals #frenchartscene #frenchartist #artproduction

SUPPORT FOR ARTISTIC CREATION – RUBIS MECENAT PRIZE Rubis Mécénat is pleased to announce the laureate of the 5th edition of the Rubis Mécénat Prize in partnership with the @beauxartsparis: Liselor Perez! She will receive critical support from Julia Marchand (@marchand.julia), guest curator of this new edition, and production assistance to create an original artistic installation to be presented at Saint-Eustache church (@eglisesainteustache) in Paris in October 2025. Liselor Perez (@iszor) is a fifth-year student in the studio of Dominique Figarella. Her artistic practice blends sculpture, textiles and performance, where she explores intimacy and identity through sculptural bodies, often made of worn fabrics. Her work questions the porosity between being and environment, between memory and transformation. For her project at Saint-Eustache church, the artist will intervene in various parts of the church, presenting an ensemble of bodies and single figures blending into the architectural patterns of the church. — Since 2021, the Rubis Mécénat Prize in partnership with the @beauxartsparis provides a student from the school with production aid and essential support for the development of an original artwork within the historic @eglisesainteustache in Paris. — Credits: Portrait of Liselor Perez © Clara Duflot / Petite lampe © Liselor Perez #rubismecenat #supportforartisticcreation #contemporary art #artpatron #artcurator #artprofessionnals #beauxartsdeparis #artproduction #prixrubismecenat

RUBIS MÉCÉNAT IN WORDS - TRANSMISSION Driven by its conviction in the social role of art, Rubis Mécénat develops artistic and cultural education projects in some countries where the Rubis group operates. Their goal is to empower disadvantaged youth and contribute sustainably to their training and integration by using artistic practice as a means of emancipation and positive engagement. In 2012, Rubis Mécénat established @ofsoulandjoy, its first project centered on photography in the township of Thokoza, in Johannesburg, South Africa. The fund then developed InPulse (@inpulseartproject), a project around visual arts, in Kingston, Jamaica. Most recently, in 2018, it created the Ndao Hanavao laboratory (@ndaohanavoproject) around social design in Antananarivo, Madagascar. #rubismecenat #artpatron #artprofessionnals

NDAO HANAVAO – MADAGASCAR Discover FOUR SEASONS, Benjamin Loyauté’s first monographic exhibition in Madagascar, presented by @hakantocontemporary and Rubis Mécénat, as part of @ndaohanavaoproject ! The artist was given a carte blanche to imagine and design this exhibition which is both a deep immersion into his artistic universe, enriched by his latest creative experiences in Madagascar, and a recontextualization of the fruits of his years of collaboration with @ndaohanavoproject. With FOUR SEASONS, Benjamin Loyauté highlights Malagasy ancestral practices, especially around the pearl— a symbolic object he incorporates into his artistic reflection. Through videos, installations, and sculptures, the artist explores the role of art as a balancing force in a world in transition and revisits the four seasons, in harmony with Malagasy realities, creating a dialogue between tradition and modernity, between nature and technology. #rubismecenat #ndaohanavao #benjaminloyaute #hakantocontemporary #socialdesign #sustainabledesign #sustainability #innovation #ecodesign # #madagascar #artpatron #artprofessionnals

RUBIS MÉCÉNAT IN WORDS - SUPPORT Aware of the importance of emerging and new creative voices, as well as unequal access to an artistic career, Rubis Mécénat supports aspiring artists through several professionalization and awareness-raising programmes. This includes the Rubis Mécénat Prize with Beaux-Arts de Paris, as well as support for the Young Creation workshop led by the Ateliers Médicis and the associated Young Creation Grant. Each year since 2021, the Rubis Mecenat Prize in partnership with @beauxartsparis enables a student to receive production assistance and curatorial advisement for the creation of a new work at @eglisesainteustache church in Paris Since 2023, Rubis Mécénat is supporting the Young Creation workshop developed by the @ateliersmedicis as part of the Cinémathèque idéale des banlieues du monde, for young artists and filmmakers. Supplementing this support is the Young Creation Grant of the Ateliers Médicis and Rubis Mécénat, awarded each year to a participant of the workshop for the development of one of their projects. In 2024, the fund extended its support to La Fabrique du Regard, the educational programme of @le_bal, which aims to shape young people through image literacy so as to sharpen their gaze. #rubismecenat #artpatron #artprofessionnals