Théo Mercier - Outremonde

Outremonde – Théo Mercier (Studio Residency 2021)

Since the beginning of his career, Théo Mercier has claimed a great formal freedom, working to deconstruct the mechanisms of representation. From his paradoxical, strange, and often humorous approach emerges a sprawling body of work populated by dystopian myths and unsettling performances, where past, present, and future reality and fiction collide within an orchestrated cacophony.

The Ballet national de Marseille supported the production of Outremonde, conceived as a dual dispositif combining an exhibition-as-set and a performance for the 2021 Avignon Festival. From this new kind of biotope, a journey and a crossing unfold, shaping an unprecedented way of seeing.

Here, Théo Mercier opens up new ways of thinking about presence and the movement of spectators within exhibition and performance spaces. In this theater of representations that is Outremonde, the configuration and scenarios of the exhibition evolve continuously, activated by the spectator and shaped by the artists. The audience is drawn into a sensory experience in which objects and bodies form a living material — both an experience in the here and now and an archaeology of an imagined future.