The Associations of Pauline Curnier Jardin presents an immersive inventory of resistance and imagination through the work of French artist Pauline Curnier Jardin (b. 1980, Marseille). Her exuberant practice spans films, drawings, sculptures, installations, assemblages, and performances, each weaving sensuous and unsettling worlds that challenge conventions and embrace transformation.

Curnier Jardin is fascinated by the ways in which stories are constructed and transmitted — whether through state power, religion, patriarchal authority, or through more vernacular and marginalised voices. She reinterprets European cultural traditions such as carnival, procession, tableau vivant, circus or popular theatre, exposing their emancipatory potential while celebrating community and collective joy.

This exhibition functions as a living archive, covering nearly two decades of work from 2006 to 2024. It gathers sculptural assemblages, scenographic environments and an unprecedented presentation of over twenty films shown simultaneously, highlighting her fluid approach to cinematic genres and her ability to re-stage history through fiction.

The exhibition is further animated by a public programme of lectures, screenings, discussions with local associations, and performances, extending Curnier Jardin’s interest in porous boundaries between stage and audience, art and activism, fiction and reality. Curated by Anne-Claire Schmitz, it situates her oeuvre within a broader conversation about how art can generate new forms of belonging.

Curnier Jardin has become known for her singular ability to stage exuberant, hybrid worlds that reveal both the violence and the pleasures of our cultural heritage. The Associations of Pauline Curnier Jardin invites visitors into this universe of shifting rituals, unstable identities, and collective invention — an invitation to rethink the stories we tell, and the communities we form.

Artists: Pauline Curnier Jardin