Abstract paintings by the toddler are on sale for 33,000 yen ($230) at her debut show at the hip gallery Decameron, tucked above a bar in the Kabukicho red-light district.

Thumbelina's vivid style is "babyish but mysteriously dexterous", gallery director -- and matchmaker of her parents -- Dan Isomura told AFP.

"I thought, 'wow, these are legit artworks'," Isomura said, describing his first impression of her free-form creations .

Colourful smudges adorn tatami mats and tables at the 21-month-old's suburban home, where her mother patiently helps twist open paint tubes and squeeze them onto paper.

"I can see this rhythm in her movements and patterns... she knows what she's doing," said the evacuee from Ukraine in her 20s, asking to remain anonymous for privacy reasons.

As a fellow artist focusing on Japanese calligraphy, she is "jealous" of her daughter's first solo exhibition, she joked, though of course "I'm happy, as a mum".

Once she thought her daughter might help her with work, but now "I'm her assistant".

- 'Like Cupid' -

After Russia invaded in 2022, Thumbelina's mother left Ukraine's eastern Donbas region -- her "very pathological, violent" homeland torn apart by war.

She found herself on a plane to Japan, having consulted a website helping Ukrainians find housing worldwide.

A chance seating beside contemporary artist Isomura, who had only boarded because of two delayed flights, changed her life.

Amazed to learn they were both artists, the pair kept in touch, and later, through Isomura's introduction, she met her future husband.

"Dan is our angel, you know, like Cupid," she said.

The couple then had Thumbelina -- not her real name -- whose paintings inspired 32-year-old Isomura.

At first he had assumed the toddler was "scribbling randomly, like she was playing in the mud".

But when he saw Thumbelina in action, "she seemed to signal each time she considered her drawing complete," prompting her mother to give her a fresh sheet.

The fact that Thumbelina sometimes demands a specific colour, develops shapes from paint droplets and finishes voluntarily suggests a will at work, he said.

"Some may say her mother's involvement means these are not Thumbelina's works," Isomura said.

But "for a baby, a mother is part of their body".

- Young creative mindset -

In any case, adult artists are not fully independent, Isomura argues, as they rarely break free of store-bought paints or conventional canvases.

"We operate under the illusion of solitary creation, while in fact we rely heavily on systems built by others," he said.

The exhibition, Isomura's first as director of Decameron, opened last month and runs until mid-May.

But most of the time it's on, from 8:00 pm until 5:00 am, Thumbelina will likely be fast asleep.

One recent night at the gallery, an admiring visitor said the paintings had an innocent charm.

"We instinctively try to draw skillfully" because "we've grown used to having our paintings evaluated by others", 45-year-old Yuri Kuroda told AFP.

"But it feels like she doesn't care at all about whether it's good or bad... It's a mindset we can never return to."

So would she pay $230 to take one home?

"I'm tempted," Kuroda chuckled.

tmo/kaf/rsc/tc

© Agence France-Presse

The unusual sport was invented by 17-year-old high schooler Eric Zhu, who raised over a million dollars to organize the event to call attention to male infertility.

Zhu said he was inspired by social media posts that claim average sperm counts had halved over the past 50 years.

Fearing that "there could be this dystopian future where no one will be able to make babies," Zhu said he wanted to use the competition to highlight the importance of reproductive health.

Scientists have not reached a consensus on whether humanity has experienced a dramatic drop in sperm count, with studies showing conflicting results.

At the Los Angeles event on Friday night, a man in a lab coat used pipettes to place samples of semen -- collected from contestants ahead of time -- onto tiny two-millimeter-long "tracks."

The race track was magnified 100 times by a microscope, then filmed by a camera that transferred the image to a 3D animation software before the final video was broadcast to the audience.

"There's no way to really tell if this is real, but I want to believe it is," Felix Escobar, a 20-year-old spectator, told AFP.

At the end of the brief race, the loser, 19-year-old University of California student Asher Proeger, was sprayed with a liquid resembling semen.

- 'Not Elon Musk' -

Zhu's fears about fertility echo the talking points of many in the burgeoning pro-natalist movement, which include conservative and far-right political figures.

But Zhu distanced himself from the movement.

"I have nothing to do with this, I'm not like an Elon Musk, who wants to repopulate the Earth," the young entrepreneur told AFP.

Musk, a close ally of US President Donald Trump, has been vocal about his belief that population decline threatens the West and has fathered over a dozen children with multiple women.

Zhu insisted he simply wanted to raise awareness of how sperm quality goes hand in hand with overall health.

"It's your choice to sleep earlier. It's your choice to stop doing drugs. It's your choice to eat healthier, and all these different things have a significant kind of impact on your motility," Zhu said.

Shanna Swan, a reproductive epidemiologist at Mount Sinai's Icahn School of Medicine, co-authored a study that found the sperm count decline cited by Zhu.

She said the proliferation of "hormonally active chemicals" in recent years has had a negative impact on human fertility.

But beneath the scientific veneer, the sperm race may seem more like an opportunity for college students to display their adolescent humor and participate in a viral stunt.

Some attendees dressed in costumes, including one resembling male genitals, while the hosts made lewd jokes and roasted the competitors.

A YouTube livestream of the event attracted over 100,000 views.

"I can't say I learned stuff I didn't know before," 22-year-old student and audience member Alberto Avila-Baca told AFP.

rfo-tjx/cms/md

© Agence France-Presse-

But on Saturday, the French challengers finally pulverised that record, assembling 3,076 people clad and face-painted in blue, wearing white hats and singing smurfy songs.

"We smurfed the record," said one participant.

Smurfs, created by Belgian cartoonist Peyo in 1958 and called "Schtroumpfs" in French, are small, human-like creatures living in the forest.

The fun characters have turned into a major franchise that includes films, series, advertising, video games, theme parks and toys.

"A friend encouraged me to join and I thought: 'Why not?'," said Simone Pronost, 82, sipping a beer on the terrace of a cafe, dressed as a smurfette.

Albane Delariviere, a 20-year-old student, travelled all the way from Rennes -- more than 200 kilometres (125 miles) away -- to join.

"We thought it was a cool idea to help Landerneau out," she said.

Landerneau mayor Patrick Leclerc, also in full smurf dress, said the effort "brings people together and gives them something else to think about than the times we're living in".

Pascal Soun, head of the association organising the event, said the gathering "allows people to have fun and enter an imaginary world for a few hours".

Contestants were relieved that weather conditions were favourable, after the previous record attempt, in 2023, was sunk by heavy rain that kept many contestants away.

In 2020, an initially successful bid -- with more than 3,500 smurfs -- was invalidated by Guinness World Records on a technicality because of a missing document.

Landerneau's smurf enthusiasts were almost ready to give up but film production company Paramount persuaded them to have another go.

Paramount, which is set to release "Smurfs, The Movie" in July, convinced them with an offer to handle the event's PR and provide 1,200 free tickets for a preview of the film.

aag/jh/gil

© Agence France-Presse--

"It really felt like the universe chose us," said Leslie, 32.

The couple were among the lucky few to be selected from 400 who applied to hold their wedding ceremony "op de ring" (on the ring).

"Everything was moving towards this," he said, with a wink at his now husband, whom he met six years ago in a nightclub.

For Zuzanna Lisowska, a 30-year-old engineer, decked out more traditionally in white and newly wedded to Yuri Iozzelli, the idea of motorway marriage just appealed to her sense of humour.

"It's just more fun than a random municipality office, right?" she laughed.

But the young Polish woman also acknowledged that sealing their union as part of a festival to celebrate the city in which they met was "really something special."

- 'Once in a lifetime' -

Under a baking sun, the weddings on the motorway took place from 10:30am (0830 GMT) to 8:00pm on Saturday night.

They were organised with military precision. Couples and their guests had 30 minutes to hold the ceremony in one tent, then one hour for a reception in another -- before the next happy couple arrived.

The weddings were anything but a quiet and private affair.

Around a quarter of a million partygoers had brought tickets to the festival and passers-by cheered and clapped every wedding with gusto.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," said Geralda Wickel, a festival-goer who had stopped by to cheer on a couple.

"If you're getting married anyway, why not on the Ring? As a real Amsterdam person, this is where you want to be," she said.

But the ring road was not quite romantic enough for Wickel, an event sales manager, to be tempted for such a wedding herself.

"I like the castle and the fairytale bit," she said.

For Dominique and Milan Lisser, who live in Weesp near Amsterdam, tying the knot in front of thousands and being questioned by several journalists was both a surreal and exhilarating experience.

"It feels like I'm a famous person," said Lisser, 32, dressed in a suit with a white shirt.

"There's so many people. It's almost all of Amsterdam," said the now Mrs Lisser, 30, in a white dress covered in sequins.

"I really love this. I'm kind of like an introvert, but extrovert as well. So I like the attention."

sh/ric/

© Agence France-Presse

Backed by historical record, Mihajlovic and his fellow villagers hope Kisiljevo, about 100 kilometres east of the capital, Belgrade, can stake its claim as the cradle of vampires and suck in tourists.

It was here, in the summer of 1725, well before Irish writer Bram Stoker made Dracula's infamous home, that villagers exhumed Blagojevic's body, suspecting him of rising from the grave at night to kill locals.

"Petar Blagojevic was found completely intact," recalled Mirko Bogicevic, a former village mayor whose family has lived there for 11 generations.

"When they drove a hawthorn stake through him, fresh red blood flowed from his mouth and ears," said Bogicevic, Blagojevic's unofficial biographer.

"He was probably just an ordinary man who had the fortune -- or misfortune -- to become a vampire. All we know is that he came from Kisiljevo, and his name appears in records from around 1700," he added, holding a copy of the Wienerisches Diarium, the imperial Viennese gazette dated July 21, 1725.

The article marks the beginning of the Kisiljevo vampire.

- Drinking blood -

Based on accounts from Austrian doctors and military officials, it was likely a mistranslation that gave rise to the myth, said Clemens Ruthner, head of the Centre for European Studies at Trinity College Dublin.

"There's an old Bulgarian word, Upior, meaning 'bad person'. I believe the villagers mumbled it, and the doctors misunderstood, writing down 'vampire' in their report," Ruthner said.

The Austrians, who were dispatched to the border region of the Habsburg Empire to investigate a series of unexplained deaths, then saw blood coming from the body.

"They assumed blood drinking. But that's wrong -- it's not what the villagers said."

Instead, people described victims dying from suffocation, detailing symptoms that closely match with a high fever caused by a serious infection, according to Ruthner.

He suggested an anthrax outbreak may explain the strange deaths.

"Vampirism, like witchcraft, is, in anthropological terms, a common model for explaining things people don't understand -- especially collective events like epidemics."

Three centuries later, few have visited Kisiljevo, a sleepy village nestled between cornfields and a lake, but some locals are determined to change that.

Lost through time and superstition, Blagojevic's grave was rediscovered using a suitably arcane method, hunting for "energy nodes" with a dowsing rod.

"This tomb, whose gravestone has weathered over the centuries, showed signs of something very unusual," Mihajlovic added, gesturing to the stone believed to mark the alleged burial plot.

"Right next to where we are standing, something truly strange happened -- the dowsing rods literally plunged into the soil. The dowser had never seen anything like it."

But the alleged bloodsucker is no longer there -- once dug up, his body was burned, and his ashes scattered in a nearby lake.

- Reviving the legend -

Beyond the demonic undead, promoting other folklore has a "huge potential" to lure tourists and investors to the region, Dajana Stojanovic, head of the local tourism office, said.

"Our region is rich in myths and legends -- not just the story of Petar Blagojevic, but also Vlach magic and unique local customs," she added, referring to the semi-nomadic traders and shepherds who once roamed the Balkans. "Every village has its traditions."

However, for Mihajlovic, it is about presenting an accurate history of his town -- one he firmly believes in.

"We have a fully documented account of an extremely unusual event — one officially identified as a case of vampirism," the 68-year-old history professor said.

"I personally believe in the authenticity of that report."

He isn't alone. Bottles of rakija -- Serbian brandy -- infused with garlic and chilli are still kept in a few homes around the village.

Just in case.

cbo-oz/al/giv/fg

© Agence France-Presse-

The sport, known as quadball officially since 2022, is originally inspired by the game played by Harry Potter and his schoolmates in the famed books by J.K. Rowling.

Instead of the magical broomsticks in the stories, quadball involves players running around with sticks between their legs and trying to throw balls through hoops.

This year -- 31 teams from Latin America to Africa to Vietnam -- competed in Tubize, Belgium for the title of world champions in the sixth edition of the tournament.

Belgium saw off Germany in the final by 170 to 90 in front of around 2,000 spectators at a local football stadium.

"It's an indescribable feeling," Belgian player Seppe De Wit, who has been involved with the sport for 12 years, told AFP.

"I'm proud of how we managed together, and it's going to be one of the best day of my life."

The United States has traditionally dominated in the sport, claiming the world title four times.

Players and authorities in the sport have in recent years been pushing to have the sport move on from its roots in the Harry Potter franchise and be taken more seriously as a discipline in its own right.

The sport -- which has mixed teams -- has also sought to distance itself from Rowling's outspoken views on transgender rights and her view that biological sex is immutable.

She denies being transphobic, but her position on the subject has made her a hate figure among many transgender rights campaigners.

Organisers at the three-day tournament -- the biggest held since it was launched in 2012 -- insisted that they remained open to all participants.

"It's really refreshing to be able to be a part of a community that when I come here, I feel like I can be open and I can talk to anyone and not have to worry about the gender of the person that I'm dating," said Japan team captain Leo Makoto Yazaki Levine.

"I can just be myself without having to hide any part of me."

vid/del/jj

© Agence France-Presse

It is all straight out of a glossy magazine and yet every carefully crafted item in the room could fit into the palm of one hand.

"I love Victorian (19th century) houses and always wanted to live in one but it never happened," laughed doll's house enthusiast Michele Simmons, admiring the cosy miniature scene by historical specialists Mulvany & Rogers.

The 57-year-old corporate recruiter revived her childhood passion for doll's houses during the pandemic and has since "flipped" about 10, buying them, doing them up and selling them on.

She and her daughter thought nothing of flying all night from Boston in the United States to hunt for tiny curtains and a child's crib at the leading Kensington Dollshouse festival in London.

"I love it! You don't think about anything else when you are doing this," she told AFP, admitting she often had to be dragged out of her work shed to feed her children as she became so absorbed.

- Exquisite miniatures -

The annual festival has been gathering some of the world's finest miniature craftspeople since 1985, celebrating a hobby that has seen rising interest recently and a mushrooming of online activity.

It showcases tiny versions of anything needed to furnish a house, from chandeliers and paintings to mahogany dining tables and kitchen items, all with steep price tags.

Doll's houses may be traditionally associated with children, but this high-end miniature collecting is very much an adult hobby.

"This is craftspeople working on just exquisite things," said self-confessed "tiny-obsessed" Rachel Collings, who bought toys from renowned miniaturists Laurence & Angela St. Leger.

Every single one of her purchases, which cost at least £40 ($53), fits easily into a small plastic container and will be added to her collection of equally small items.

"I've got half a cut lemon. Just imagine the size of that. A lemon squeezer and a pastry brush and a hand whisk that actually works," said the 47-year-old editor.

"It's an inner child thing. These things are just so beautiful."

Doll's houses originated from Europe in the 1500s when they were used to display the miniature possessions of the wealthy.

Just as at the London festival, these so-called "baby houses" were strictly for adults, not children.

Retired midwife Susan Evans, 67, on her annual pilgrimage from Colwyn Bay in north Wales, does not just have one doll's house.

"I have a whole village," she said. "It's got 18 Victorian shops, a school, a manor house, a pub and a now a church," she said, adding that the church had cost over £4,000.

Initially the hobby was just a stress-buster to help her unwind, but she has now raised thousands of pounds hosting groups to visit the display in her home.

"It's my passion. It's escapism and it's about using your imagination, which I think is very good for your mental health," she said.

- 'In control' -

Kensington Dollshouse organiser Charlotte Stokoe said there was currently huge interest in doll's houses and miniatures compared to before the pandemic.

"When the world itself is going a bit crazy with so much stress in everyone's lives, it's quite relaxing. You are in control," she said, adding that many people had delighted in pulling out old doll's houses during the Covid lockdowns.

And at a time of rising costs, she said, people had "discovered they can do interior design that maybe they can't do with their own homes -- in small scale it's so much more doable".

Medical anthropologist Dalia Iskander of University College London (UCL) has spent three years researching the subject for her forthcoming book "Miniature Antidotes".

"For many people it's a way of exploring their own experiences and memories and imagination and incorporating that into these miniature worlds," she said.

A whole range of medical issues such as depression or anxiety could all be explored through miniatures in a "beneficial" way, she added.

Miniatures enthusiast Collings said the hobby had become such a source of happiness that her 12-year-old daughter also got involved. She urged anyone to give it a try.

"When everything is difficult, there are these tiny things," she said.

"Sometimes I just go and sit and look at them and it just makes me happy."

har/jkb/rlp

© Agence France-Presse

After a four-year renovation with a $70 million price tag, the reopening of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing comes amid heated debate over the representation of cultural diversity in Western museums and the return of works to their countries of origin.

The reopening should be "an opportunity to recognize that the achievements of artists in this part of the world (sub-Saharan Africa) are equal to those of other major world traditions," Alisa LaGamma, the Met's curator for African art, told AFP.

In a spacious gallery bathed in light, visitors are greeted by a monumental Dogon sculpture -- "a heroic figure, likely a priest," LaGamma explained.

Next to it sits a clay sculpture of a curled body from the ancient city of Djenne-Djenno, in present-day Mali, which is believed to be one of the oldest pieces in the collection, dating back to the 13th century.

- 'Complex history' -

The exhibit does not present the works of sub-Saharan Africa as a single unit, but in chapters to better distinguish between the various cultures.

"We don't want people to oversimplify their understanding of an incredibly complex history," LaGamma said.

"There are over 170 different cultures represented among the 500 works of African art on display," she pointed out.

"That gives you a sense of how many different stories there are to tell in this presentation."

The museum wing, which also displays arts of Oceania and the "ancient Americas" -- prior to European colonization -- opened in 1982 after former Republican vice president and philanthropist Nelson Rockefeller donated his monumental collection. It is named for his son.

"This is a collection that was formed essentially following independence in a lot of what were new nations across sub-Saharan Africa," LaGamma said.

"It doesn't have necessarily the heavy weight of a collection that was formed under colonialism," she said, hinting at the pressure faced by many museums to respond to questions about the origins of works on display.

- 'African Spirits' -

A third of the works shown here were newly acquired. The museum was thus able to benefit from a donation of thousands of photographs from the renowned Arthur Walther collection.

Among the vast trove of pieces donated is a 2008 series of self-portraits entitled "African Spirits" by Fosso, a Cameroonian-Nigerian photographer.

Among Africa's leading photographers, Fosso poses as major figures in African independence and civil rights struggles, from Congolese independence leader and first prime minister Patrice Lumumba, to Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X.

Through around a dozen films directed by Ethiopian-American artist Sosena Solomon, visitors can also explore iconic cultural sites across the continent, like Tsodilo rock paintings in Botswana, the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela and Tigray in Ethiopia, and the tombs of Buganda kings at Kasubi in Uganda.

"In an art museum like this, it is important that rock paintings should be reflected," said Phillip Segadika, chief curator for archeology and monuments at Botswana's national museum, in residence at the Met to participate in the project.

"It tells us that what we are seeing today, whether it's in European art, medieval art, whatever -- it has a history, it also has an antiquity."

arb/gl/nl/sla

© Agence France-Presse