Marielle Chabal — As Free As Ones Could Claim — 40mcube — Rennes — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: May 18 → July 21, 2018

Marielle Chabal develops literary fictions that give rise to sculptural and pictorial forms. The exhibition As Free As Ones Could Claim brings together documents, models and a film retracing the history of the utopian Halmen community and the creation of the city of Al Qamar in 2023…

Marielle Chabal creates fictions that take various forms: novels, short stories, sculptures, installations, films, posters, models, etc. The dystopic societies she invents are shaped as much by theory as by gender studies and the spirit of the times. Through them, she examines the paradoxes inherent in the idea of comfort, with a strong interest in communities, alienation and politics.

For the artist, an exhibition works like a book. They are both white cubes that offer ideas, images and shapes. Her stories and, later, the installations that flow from them, are successions of descriptions, glances, situations, buildings, references, sculptures and post-apocalyptic and/or fantastic landscapes.

For her exhibition at 40mcube, Marielle Chabal presents a series of works that echoes her latest story, Al Qamar, in which she stages the characters at the origin of the Halmen community and the city of Al Qamar. Created in 2023, this utopian city develops around buildings created by artists and intended as well for work as for leisure activities. The exhibition, built as a vast documentary device, brings together different works (sculptures, models, posters, films, documentation, etc.) that shed light on the origins and development of Al Qamar. The artist thus invites visitors to enter the heart of a fictional device.