“You have to enter this exhibition as if you were rushing down a mountain or following the course of a river,” says Jeanne Mercier, curator of “Shifting Landscapes”, the second edition of the Jeu de Paume festival dedicated to the metamorphoses of contemporary imagery. Across the venue’s two floors, 15 artists use 14 installations to explore landscapes and the ways in which their representations shape our perceptions.
Winding through the exhibition, behind drawn curtains, or even in a dark room pulsing with techno music, spectators are encouraged to fully immerse themselves in the experience, deciphering the narratives unfolding before them. “We took the idea of storytelling literally,” Jeanne Mercier explains. “We wanted to create a shared narrative that encompasses all these different artistic universes. To build suspense, tension, and anticipation. To push visitors to reflect.”
From the origins of the world to a distant future, the artworks mark the exhibition like punctuation in a grand tale—guiding us through a labyrinth of artistic expressions.
Intertwining temporalities
The exhibition opens with Julian Charrière’s large-scale glaciers—an arresting visual reference to landscapes that have become icons of climate change. Opposing these icy expanses, visitors encounter the volcanic lands of Southeast Asia, where palm trees are set ablaze by erupting lava. At the center of this apocalyptic scene, a giant lava lamp filled with palm oil plays with the absurdity of trends: within this nostalgic object, so popular in the 1990s and early 2000s, lies a symbol of ruthless exploitation.
Next, Prune Phi weaves together grand historical narratives with her own family archives, linking the past of her “Vietnamese grandfather, founder of a restaurant called La Rizière,” to her personal research in the wetlands of the Camargue. Two timelines converge in a rolling kitchen cart, where sake glasses become magnifying lenses revealing hidden images.
Upstairs, time shifts as altitude changes. Julien Lombardi presents Planeta, a project on Mexico that develops “a spatial imaginary from an anthropological perspective, blending science and science fiction.” By experimenting with infrared and ultraviolet light, he transforms earthly deserts into Martian landscapes, captured by fictional rovers.
Finally, at the festival’s conclusion, Mounir Ayache transports us to the 26th century. Inspired by the myth of Charybdis and Scylla, his installation features a conversation between two entities, speaking in classical Arabic about the end of the world. Surrounding them is a landscape composed of mountain-like structures made from Hermès scarves, alongside a digital representation of palm trees animated by a massive robotic arm—a futuristic edifice paying homage to a nature that no longer exists.
Photography as an active narrator
Photography, while not overlooked, is deconstructed and reimagined to become an active force in storytelling. Richard Pak, for instance, tells the history of Nauru, a 20 km² island in Oceania. The discovery of phosphate reserves in the last century turned it into a wealthy and powerful nation. At the time of its independence in 1968, it was the richest country in the world. However, the depletion of its resources soon plunged it into severe poverty, making it, by the mid-1990s, the poorest nation on the planet.
“I wanted to sacrifice the negatives with phosphoric acid to pay tribute to the island, to emphasize the bitter irony of the Anthropocene,” says Richard Pak. The resulting works are “pockmarked,” with gaping holes burned by acid—wounds that rend nature apart, corrupting its beauty and revealing an inexplicable monstrosity.
Andrea Olga Mantovani also experiments with unpredictability. “As I was researching forest conservation in Ukraine, I discovered that my grandfather, named André, was a forester. I then traveled to the Ukrainian Carpathians with two small analog cameras. In one, I used expired film, knowing that the results might be entirely blank—I told myself that these images would belong to my grandfather,” she recounts. Playing with color tones, she crafts a visual dialogue marked by deep hues—from violet to red, through black and white—a way of communicating with both the spirit of a place and the memory of her ancestor.
This is the strength of “Shifting Landscapes”—through a diversity of mediums and perspectives, the festival reveals a vast spectrum of interpretations. Each theme is nourished by artistic proposals seeking constant reinvention.
The “Shifting Landscapes” festival is on display at Jeu de Paume, in Paris, until March 23, 2025.
Cover image: Clouds of sand, Sahara from the project “The Talking Cloud”, 2011 to present, Triptych, Photographic print © Yo-Yo Gonthier © Adagp, 2025
