Manon

For the opening of the exhibition Paramor at the Frac des Pays de la Loire.

Manon is a nocturnal visit through the enchanted world of lust and desire imagined for the space of an exhibition dealing with desire and disorder.

« Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. » says the Red Queen to Alice in Lewis Carroll‘s masterpiece.

With slow steps, her dress gathered up, Manon wanders through the FRAC, lighting her way with a candle.
As her journey progresses—neither entirely internal nor completely external—the light shifts, and this first day of June fades away. Night settles over the artworks, which gradually awaken under the gaze of the young girl. It is the opening of the Paramor exhibition. The beginning of a new adventure.
And yet, Manon moves backward.

Heir to Alice, Dorothy, and Laura Palmer, Manon advances in reverse—dancing steps that erase what lies before her while embracing what comes toward her. A witness, despite herself, to scenes where desire and disorder intertwine and struggle, merging into a single impulse—nothing can halt her drift. Manon must surely be a cousin of Sleeping Beauty. Her surroundings seem to doze off, frozen in the act of living. The present moment becomes eternity.
Is she the one dreaming?
Or perhaps we are the ones fantasizing this feminine figure.
On which side of the mirror do we stand, and in which direction does time flow? Will the dress eventually fall?

Between the slick, treacherous spaces of Monica Bonvicini’s works, joyfully embraced by the shattered mirrors of Jim Hodges—which distort and multiply her slow dance—Manon takes her time and gives us back our own.
A survivor from a world that always demands more—more, beyond what is possible, beyond what is real—this heroine reveals to us what the flame of a candle might look like after it’s been blown out.
A journey to the end of the night.

From the series Animate in Slow Motion, initiated in 2009 upon invitation from the Beaux Arts Museum of Angers.

With Manon Maurios, Alexandre Meyrat Le Coz and Antony Breurec
Special thanks to Marie Grier, Cecile Hadj-Hassan, Lucie Goulas, Ely Bessis, Nadège Tran, Iris Tlemsamani, Manon Rolland, Valérie Audren, Aurélie Girard, Benoit Travers, Tomasz Obloj & Agnieszka Ryszkiewicz

Costume by Manon Maurios

Images by Vaida Budreviciute