Biennale des Imaginaires Numériques 2026 - Souffles terrestres

The Chroniques Biennale of Digital Imaginaries joins forces with the Marseille Museums to present installations by Etienne Rey and Stéphanie Roland at the Centre de la Vieille Charité.

The works in this exhibition make perceptible the subtle forces that move through matter, landscapes and bodies. Vibrations of water, seismic movements, underground frequencies and mineral resonances come together in environments where the Earth appears as a living, unstable and active entity.

In the face of climate upheaval and extractivist practices, the artists shift our perspective: natural elements are no longer mere silent backdrops, but forces capable of responding, sending signals and creating their own narratives. The exhibition opens up a space for attentive listening, where the Earth's breaths become forms of resistance—subtle or loud.

• Stéphanie Roland BE Serpentine night Video installation

Serpentine night is a video installation exploring California's geological fault system. This mosaic portrays the idea of a fault line between reality and fiction, the real and virtual worlds, geography and emotions. It probes invisible earthly phenomena, as well as very human fault lines—the tremors of societies. Giving a voice to the ground makes it possible to move beyond dominant anthropocentric narratives; listening to non-human entities becomes a way to heal our extractivist relationship with territories. To resist is to imagine other ontologies with stronger ties between inhabitants and their territories, to speculate that they can cross the fault line, build and create in the fissure.

• Étienne Rey Impermanence Installation

Impermanence is a visual, sculptural and sound installation made up of five water sculptures in constant recombination. The work explores resonance as a fundamental principle, bringing into play cyclical and wave phenomena arising from the interaction between matter, gravity and a mechatronic choreography of movement.. Inspired by a seismic event in Greenland, it translates vibrational dynamics into a perceptible scale, where forms, sounds and instabilities emerge.

In relation to the idea of resistance, Impermanence draws attention to fragile balances and the forces that move through the world. In the face of ecological upheaval and systems of domination, the work offers a perceptual experience grounded in coexistence, listening and transformation. Conceived as a continuity between the visible and the audible, it makes resonance a space for experience: the movements of water, sound vibrations and mechanical cycles compose an unstable landscape, where resistance takes the form of heightened attention to the balances of living things.

The artists

• Stéphanie Roland Stéphanie Roland is a visual artist and filmmaker based in Brussels. She makes films and installations that explore, between documentary and imagination, the invisible structures of the Western world, vast timescales and hyperobjects. Her inspiration comes from a range of fields, including ecology, politics, geology and the cosmos.

After graduating from La Cambre and attending Hito Steyerl's class at UDK Berlin, she completed a programme at Le Fresnoy – Studio National. Her work is regularly presented internationally, and her projects have been included in exhibitions at major institutions: the Venice Biennale, Centre Pompidou, Stedelijk Museum, Musée du Louvre, Musée Benaki, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Botanique, Kampala International Art Biennale, Wiels and ISELP. Breda Photo, Belfast Photo festival, Encontros da Imagem, BIP Liège and MOPLA Los Angeles are among the photography festivals in which she has participated.

Her films have been screened at international festivals such as Visions du Réel, FID Marseille, Festival dei Popoli, ZINEBI Bilbao, FEST New Directors / New Films, Rencontres Internationales Paris / Berlin, Curtas Cinema and PÖFF Shorts Tallin black nights, among others. Her first film, Podesta Island, won the Alice Guy Award at FID Marseille, and her second film, Le cercle vide, received the TËNK Award at the Visions du Réel festival in Nyon.

A "prospective" programme showcasing all her films was held at Centre Pompidou in Paris in 2024.

• Etienne Rey Etienne Rey's work explores the very notion of space. Its aim is to shift perception. Questions of place and environment, of in situ work and architecture, contribute to the discovery of spatial structures through shifts and the multiplication of viewpoints.

The various installations share an invitation to experiences made up of material and immaterial elements, energies and attractions, involving physical phenomena whose primary vector is light. Reciprocal transformations take place between perception, which is individual, and an awareness of the impact of our presence. The intention is to create experiences of space. The works reveal how space is structured. From immaterial installations made of mist and light to those using materials with optical properties, all the works create perceptual filters of the environment, prompting us to question our relationship with reality.

More information about the exhibition and the Chroniques Biennale programme: https://chroniques-biennale.org/event/souffles-terrestres/

Exhibition co-organised by CHRONIQUES _ regional centre for artistic creation in digital environments _ and the City of Marseille.