For the Rencontres d’Arles, Palais de Tokyo is inviting Julien Creuzet, as part of the VR Arles Festival in partnership with Fisheye.

Julien Creuzet explores different cultural heritages, associating most often poetry, song, photography, film and installation. He combines these media like languages that enrich each other mutually; their (inter)weaving brings out spaces, coincidences, or games that are both precise and laid-back, giving free rein to the imagination. The islands that form the archipelago of the West Indies, and their history marked by Western colonisations, have clearly marked the thought of Édouard Glissant, which has in turn inspired this artist’s creative attitude. As in these writings, the work of Julien Creuzet suggests that neither the identity of the individual nor a given collective identity is frozen. Exchanges are made with others, without self-denial.

Maïs Chaud Marlboro is the artist’s first virtual reality production. In this framework, his focus fixes on the cultivation and distribution of maize. The offspring of Mesoamerican gods, and cultivated for ten thousand years in Mexico, it was imported to Europe in the 16th century and is today sold grilled on clandestine stalls in the Barbès neighbourhood of Paris. A chant forms the ambient voice of the exhibition, while images of Mexican landscapes and monuments, pre-Columbian objects and shots of maize fields in Europe are combined together.

Galerie Arena
16, rue des Arènes – 13631 Arles