The Avignon Festival forced to react after strong reactions on the official poster

Olivier Py, director of the Festival d’Avignon, denounces “fundamentalists of all stripes [who] find themselves always offended by the female body”.

“I have never made a Festival poster that is not controversial.” The director of the Avignon festival, Olivier Py, responded on Tuesday April 26 to the controversy created by the poster for the 76th edition of the event which celebrates theater and live performance. In question, the illustration which shows several naked women and which shocked Internet users.

Unveiled Monday on social networks, the poster produced by Afghan artist Kubra Khademi, a refugee in France since 2015, is accused of being “unhealthy”, “shocking”, “vulgar” or even of promoting “the exploitation of women’s bodies,” according to comments that can be read under the festival’s Facebook post.

“The poster for the 2022 Avignon festival features naked young girls drawn in what could look like a promotion of pedophilia, pornography [sic],” reads a petition asking for the illustration to be removed.

Due to the mixed reception of the poster, the Festival attempted to clarify the artist’s intentions by commenting on the original publication. “Kubra Khademi is a feminist whose paintings and performances are informed by the situation in her country”, he explains, indicating that “his representations of women are not born from the desire to show their nudity”. “They are obvious to stage free bodies,” he adds.

A poster “full of hope for women”

The director of the festival, Olivier Py, also reacted to the controversy with the Dauphiné Libéré. “Those who see little girls, I send them back to their own fantasies but I think it’s Kubra who drew herself,” he says, castigating “fundamentalists of all stripes [who] find themselves always offended by the female body”. “I have never made a Festival poster that is not controversial,” he also said.

For Paul Rodin, deputy director of the Festival d’Avignon, who says he is “appalled” by the reactions, the work of the 30-year-old “is even more powerful than all the feminists in the world”. He puts forward a poster “gentle, generous, hospitable, full of hope for women”.

The 2022 edition of the Avignon Festival will be held from July 7 to 22, with an official program including 46 shows. Olivier Py, who will direct his last Festival d’Avignon this year, does not intend to “make a summary or commemorative Festival”. The director will present “Ma jeunesse exaltée”, a creation that lasts 10 hours.