Thierry Oussou

Born in Benin, lives and works in Amsterdam (NL) and Benin Thierry Oussou received an art education at the Rijksakademie In Amsterdam - Netherlands. As a visual and conceptual artist, his practice incorporates a diversity of media and shows great interest in professions that are marginalized and overlooked. From cotton workers to public transport drivers, his visual investigation aims to emphasize, or rather turn visible the different terms of labour that exist, and how they affect the society we live in. 

For instance, his recent project Equilibrium Wind shines a light on the role of cotton workers worldwide. Cotton has a long and varied history, and is still the frequent subject of international debate on topics such as poverty reduction, agricultural subsidies, and the Strategic Development Goals. The artist runs a cotton plantation, like millions of other small farmers who produce cotton, supporting their families and their communities. Through this project he calls attention to the fact that the price of cotton on the markets is clearly different from the price of gold or oil, and encourages us to give thought to the workers whose manual labor produces the cotton. Through encounters with the people who underlie the cotton industry, Oussou’s approach can be seen as a proposal engendering hope for an ideal production and distribution cycle. No stranger to the dignity of manual labour, he vividly recalls, while visiting his relatives’ pineapple farm, how fresh pineapples tightly packed for transport were an odd, dark reminder of captives once crammed on slave ships.

For his Project Growing Poetics at the KASTEEL WIJLRE Oussou create a site-specific sculpture, made of natural materials from the surrounding area, which being installed in the gardens of the estate. A tree has been planted in the castle’s garden, surrounded by benches for visitors to observe its growth even after Oussou’s exhibition ends.

His project Impossible is Nothing project began by fabricating and burying a replica of the royal throne of Béhanzin, who was the king of Dahomey before it was colonized by France. Much later, Oussou organized a series of performances, including an excavation of the site by archaeological students, surfacing conceptual issues that underly debate on the return of plundered art and artifacts. 

Oussou will be researching the production of wine. He dreams of making visible the invisible history surrounding wine production and also the performance of farmers and the industries that produce wine through a conceptual and contemporary approach.

Major exhibitions and Price 

In 2023 he was awarded with Royal Award for Modern Painting 2023, by the His Majesty Willem Alexander, Golden Lion for Best National Participation 18th International Venice Architecture Biennale 2023 with Brazil, 

Recent exhibitions include: Solo Show Growing Poetics, Kasteel Wijlre (2024), Solo Show  “Impossible Is Nothing” Centraal Museum, Utrecht (2023), British textile Biennal, Blackburn (2023), Ljubljana 35 Biennale (2023); Riga Festival Survival-Kit Riga (2023), Aichi Triennale, Japan (2022)

Unlocked/Reconnected at Oude Kerk (2020; Amsterdam,

Impossible is Nothing at Art Exchange (2019 Essex, UK). 

as the 21st Sesc_Videobrasil Biennial of Contemporary Art (2019; São Paulo, Brazil) and the 10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art (2018; Germany).