Here we are in the final months of the year, turning the last pages before starting a new chapter. As the year draws to a close, everyone has their own way of ending it.
Some celebrate, others reunite with loved ones or spend time with family, but all of us take a moment to pause, look back on the road travelled and take stock.
For our part, a short retrospective is in order. Mozaïk, the digital cultural magazine of the Indian Ocean, now counts 22 issues, 2 special editions, readers in 62 countries and an average of 924 clicks a day.
These figures keep growing, and they reflect the interest that you, our loyal readers, show in the magazine. Hats off as well to the whole editorial team, whose commitment allows Mozaïk to keep exploring cultures and artistic expressions from here and elsewhere.
To get to the heart of the matter, let us begin with the visual arts, which form the backbone of Mozaïk.
We are honoured to welcome the painter Sarah Peguero to our pages. Shaped by a dual Dominican-American heritage, she creates spontaneous, impulsive and unpredictable paintings in which gesture prevails over calculation.
We will discover other textures and new colour palettes with Nominsondo, a Mongolian painter who draws her inspiration from nature and from her culture. After studying at the School of Fine Arts in Ulaanbaatar and working in photography, she has developed a distinctive pictorial world that combines traditional Mongolian painting techniques with surreal, mythological and dreamlike imagery.
At the other end of the continent, Mawuko Abosseh, a self-taught visual artist of Togolese origin born in Lagos, Nigeria, turns the object into a true language. Through the stool, he explores the tensions between power and submission, tradition and modernity, while questioning the place of human beings in society. For his part, Mahefa Rasamuel, a Malagasy visual artist and contemporary painter, reveals a world where colours converse with traces, textures and emotions.
In the performing arts, we meet Cahaya Jais, a scientist, writer and stage actress who works at the crossroads of several disciplines. For her, art and science are two complementary ways of observing the world, each offering a different perspective. Her creative world takes shape precisely in this meeting point between disciplines.
Photography will also be in the spotlight, with a look back at Joël Pélerin's exhibition "Tenderness", shown in September 2025 at the Norphei Art Gallery in Ulaanbaatar. Through 43 artistic nude photographs, the photographer offered a journey around the female and male body. Organised as part of the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between France and Mongolia, celebrated in 2025, the exhibition marked an important milestone in the reception of artistic nude photography in Mongolia.
The literary world is particularly lively at the moment, with heated debates, revelations and major events, and we will be sure to cover it in the magazine.
Our columnist Jean-Louis Cornille takes a close look at Fortune, the first novel by Elie Ramanankavana, published by Éditions Edern and a finalist for the 2026 Prix Senghor for a first novel.
In the same vein, but on a very different subject, he also reflects on the place of artificial intelligence in literary creation.
In comics, we feature two authors. On one side is Swann Meralli, a French comic book and children's book writer as well as a short film director, who opens the doors to his creative world and shares what drives his work. On the other is Farahaingo, whose real name is Njaranirina Lova Ratianalison, a Malagasy illustrator and graphic designer who traces the history of Malagasy comics, between resourcefulness and market realities.
Anthropology, which holds a prominent place in our pages, offers an informed and cross-disciplinary view of human beings in all their complexity, where biological, cultural and social dimensions meet across time and space. In this issue, we give the floor to Narivelo Rajaonarimanana, an anthropologist and lecturer-researcher at the National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations (Inalco) in Paris, who invites us to explore the question of ancestors in contemporary Malagasy society. His analysis shows how ties to the ancestors, inherited from tradition, continue to shape representations, practices and social dynamics in Madagascar.
So many perspectives, journeys and sensibilities remind us that culture remains a space for encounter, reflection and openness to the world.
So scroll through the pages for more new discoveries, and enjoy your reading!
- Joachin Michaël Rakotoarisoa
Editor-in-Chief