A young girl with a hair full of stars rides her bicycle through a dreamlike landscape which, like a circus stage, reveals a world of enchantment and music. Along the way, we encounter fantastical beings, fish with human eyes, winged cars and blue deer, figures passing through a night inhabited by motifs inspired by Eastern miniature painting, endlessly recomposing themselves like a giant kaleidoscope. Welcome to the fabulous universe of Iranian artist Azarakhsh Farahani, a draftsman, musician, filmmaker and actor, who is spending two months in residence at the Centre d’Art in Auroville. The animated film Murals, written, conceived, and directed by him—including the sound design— joins the works created in Auroville as part of his project The Cosmic Exiled Child. The project is further enriched by a body of earlier works created in France and Iran around the themes of spiritual exile and the universality of myths. The project revolves around the figure of a wandering spirit searching for its home in a world structured by geographical and political borders. The exiled child metaphorically represents the artist migrating between different cultures, a free being whose consciousness rejects restrictions and barriers and dreams of rediscovering the vastness from which it emerged. Azarakhsh’s drawings have the magic of contemporary mystical fables, teeming with details and shimmering colours, in which one longs to lose oneself. Yet behind their harmony and gentleness lies a profound reflection on the themes of diaspora, displacement and identity. Figures from Iranian mythology—radiant suns, sacred mountains, trees of life—merge harmoniously with those of Indian mythology and cosmology: hybrid beings, half-human and half-animal sacred creatures carved into the millenary stone of temples. According to the artist, mythology speaks directly to the soul, and nowhere is it as naturally intertwined with everyday life as in India. This is why it occupies such a central place in his work, as an expression shared by all humanity, beyond every difference, as “the only language capable of crossing borders without a passport.” In a happy coincidence that reinforces the exhibition’s message of hope and tolerance, the inauguration will take place on October 2—the anniversary of Gandhi’s birth and also the International Day of Non-Violence. Dominique Jacques 2026

Azarakhsh Farahani (born 1981) is an Iranian visual artist, painter, illustrator and animation director currently based in Paris, France. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Painting from Azad University in Tehran. Since the 1990s, his work has been presented internationally through 39 solo exhibitions and 25 group exhibitions. The Auroville exhibition grew out of a two-month artistic residency at Centre d’Art — Citadines, for which Farahani is deeply grateful. On October 2, 2026, two solo exhibitions of his work open simultaneously in Auroville, India, and State College, Pennsylvania, USA. Both exhibitions coincide with Gandhi’s birthday, and Farahani dedicates his contribution to both exhibitions to the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi.