2026, La Grande Halle de La Villette, Paris
Sculpturale installation
Set inside the grey metal structure of the Grande Halle de La Villette, this sculptural installation responds to the memory of a place that is now a cultural venue but was once part of Paris’s slaughterhouse and livestock market complex. Embodying concepts of twisting, envelopment and suspension, the central platform is transformed by a diaphanous installation that references strange substances within a new body. Blood is the core theme.
Suspended in mid-air, Bloodshift inhabits the space, cascading from above in waves and folds of transparent or translucent material, as though captured in a moment of weightlessness, conveying a twisting sensation. Blood-red shrouds the suspended “body”, while blusher pink evokes flesh. The work comes alive with a faint sound. Moving air produces a regular crackling noise, creating a distinctive immersive experience that spreads through the surrounding structures.
Light playing across the sculpture’s contorted surfaces creates glimmers, elusive flashes and saturated yet transparent scarlet hues. The eye absorbs; the body is immersed. Throughout the day, projections of light form bands of red and then pink that spill across the space, casting scarlet shadows onto the immaculate white floor.
Bloodshift draws inspiration from Baroque aesthetics and images of bodies suspended in midair in sixteenth-century ceiling frescoes. The motif of falling bodies or objects also appears in the work of more contemporary artists.
Red acts like a magnetic field. The Grande Halle de La Villette resonates with the lingering echoes of a place once filled with living animals and carcasses, its memories seemingly suspended within it.
Dimensions : 5,75 x4 x 2,75 m Gel filters, perspex tubes, fan, light projections with program
In the frame of A@W
