Zoarinivo Razakaratrimo, known as Madame Zo, is a major figure in the Malagasy contemporary art scene. Her creative process is characterised by a relentless experimentation in the medium of textiles and a desire to renew ancestral Malagasy forms. We can see this reflected in the artist’s technique of creating her own looms in order to construct forms and volumes of unprecedented dimensions. Her work can be read as a kind of woven orality, in which abstract motifs are used to question environmental and socio-political issues in Madagascar, evoking its landscapes, totems, symbols, and spiritual and political concepts.

As she reached her thirties, Madame Zo daringly left her career as a cartographic draughtsperson to embark, in 1985, on a professional course in weaving and textile dyeing at the Centre National de l’Artisanat Malagasy (CENAM). In 1990 she founded Les Tisserandes, an artisanal weaving company that would, ten years later, become Zo Artiss, a brand specialising in the creation of textiles and design objects. In 1996, she met artist Joël Andrianomearisoa (1977–) through a project supporting the development of artisanal techniques in Madagascar (Creadeva). She began to adapt her technique, her experimentations multiplying as she integrated new materials into her weaving practice. Her library of media was thus vastly enriched, and now included sponges, newspaper, magnetic tapes, electronic components, copper, plastic scraps, vegetables, medicinal plants and other organic matter.

At the beginning of the 2000s, Madame Zo became part of the circle of Malagasy contemporary artists known as Vondrona Andrafetana su Ivoizana ny Kolotsain’ny Ampitso (VAIKA), and took part in a variety of local cultural and artistic events. Her participation as a designer in the Salon International du Design Africain et de la Créativité Textile in 2000, organised as part of the third Dakar Biennale in Senegal, launched the artist’s international career. In 2001 she held a weaving workshop in the Central African Republic, and in 2002 and 2004 participated in the Biennale Internationale du Design de Saint-Etienne. Several of her pieces were subsequently acquired by the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington. In 2003, the Centre Culturel Albert Camus (now the Institut français de Madagascar) organised Madame Zo’s first solo exhibition, titled Le Traditionnel au xxi^e siècle. She would return in 2006 with another solo exhibition, La Saison des cultures, curated by Rina Ralay Ranaivo, and in 2013 with Matières choisies. In 2010, the artist contributed to multiple textile design and fashion projects, notably Naturellement urbain (2010–2012), TransPorter/Lambahoany en mouvement (2011), and the Ethical Fashion Show in Paris (2012). In 2018 her works were shown in the exhibition Madagascar, arts de la Grande Île at the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, and in 2019 at Fondation H as part of the exhibition L’Art au quotidien.

Madame Zo passed away suddenly in the summer of 2020. Just before her death, she had been honoured with the Prix Paritana by Fondation H. In 2023, the foundation paid tribute to the artist with an exhibition titled Bientôt je vous tisse tous, curated by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Bérénice Saliou, Alya Sebti and Hobisoa Raininoro.