Michele Ciacciofera (1969, Italy) is offering Passerelle an experience which may appear impossible, that of ‘Condensing the Infinite’. From his native Sardinia to the Alps and then Brittany and Scotland, he has observed the ancient sculptural forms, such as memorial stones and menhirs, on which human civilisations are based. In his European journey, he considers the inevitable end of us all and the infinite potential of our visual culture to go beyond the world dreamed up by our ancestors. ‘Condensing the Infinite’ is an attempt to write a common history, a history of the forms that our brains all recognise to a greater or lesser extent. 

The body of works presented in the Passerelle patio has been entitled ‘Menhirs’ by the artist. Ciacciofera is fascinated by megalithic art, yet decided to work from fragile, modest materials, essentially workshop waste including paper and cardboard, the very opposite of the eternity of stone. In this sense this series recalls the work of the Arte Povera artists, an Italian artistic movement that began in the late 1960s. It was characterised by the use of ordinary humble materials, often natural or salvaged, and reflected a desire to reconnect with original simplicity and authenticity as well as a rejection of overconsumption. This heritage is never claimed or stated but it seems essential to consider some of Ciacciofera’s creations through the prism of a ‘new poor art’. Recycling and the use of natural materials have become as much an aesthetic necessity for the artist as they are a political and militant requirement. His sculptures abound in poetic details such as little ceramics or painted organic elements, evoking at times the style of the Cycladic idols, at times the shapes of plants or fungi, and are sometimes painted in bright colours and act as altars dedicated to art. They function both as platforms or plinths for art and as sculptures in their own right, joyous and reassuring, wise and primitive.

The second central series of the exhibition is Pathosformeln, gouaches on paper inspired by the theory of art historian Aby Warburg (1966-1929). The latter invented this term for the recurrent formal configurations used to express basic emotions. These formulae are not limited to mere representations, but constitute fragments of collective memory, echoes of ancestral rituals and original myths. Pathosformeln constitute a precious tool to decipher the meaning of the images and understand the emotions conveyed by them. Following on from Warburg’s research, Ciacciofera reproduces pieces of iconic Gothic and Renaissance painting like close-ups, erasing some parts including all the faces. Strangely, this does not result in the compositions being disembodied, nor devoid of feeling, and the presence of the characters is strongly felt, like ghosts waiting in the space between two realities. Rocks, pebbles, gems and fossils float through the drawings, creating an effect that could be either magic or a sign of out-of-control quantum physics. It is up to the spectator whether to try to reconstruct an image or remain satisfied with what the artist presents. 

The possibility of condensing the infinite posited by Ciacciofera may lie in this search for an active synthesis of the human history from prehistoric art to the art of today.

Han Bing (1986, China) is presenting “7:77”, her first personal exhibition to be held at a European institution, at Passerelle Centre d’Art Contemporain. A graduate of CAFA in Beijing – China’s central Academy of Fine Arts – and of Parsons School of Design in New York, Han Bing has studied a very diverse range of references and influences, enabling her to develop multicultural sensibility and an enhanced vision of the world.

Han Bing’s painting is intimately linked to the abundance of images available in the public space. The artist sometimes captures elements from posters mentally and sometimes photographs an advertisement with her phone. From all around her she picks out images which we no longer see because they are in front of us all the time. Back in her studio, she assembles her discoveries very freely over the canvas. Her approach echoes those of the new realists of the 1960s, among them Jacques Villeglé and Raymond Hains. Villeglé took ripped and loose posters from the walls of the town and transformed them into vibrant and poetic works of art. Like Han Bing today, he revealed the strata of the urban environment, which bear the marks of time and of human intervention. Han Bing willingly
evokes the ‘anonymous poetry’ of her paintings. The juxtapositions she creates emerge ‘in unexpected ways’ and very spontaneously. She prefers using the word ‘to grow’; rather than ‘to build’ when talking about her way of arranging the canvas and compares painting to a living, organic material.

Part of the exhibition is devoted to works on paper. Han Bing uses newspaper articles as raw material. She selects them for their aesthetic quality and covers up certain parts of the photographs illustrating the article. By erasing the information, the artist seems to be questioning the place given nowadays to truth and objectivity, and recalling that the world has entered the era of fake news and deep fakes – the ultra-realistic doctoring of video and audio created by artificial intelligence.

Amélie Caritey (1998, Côte d’Ivoire), a graduate of the École européenne d’art de Bretagne – Rennes campus, took part in the Residence Workshops offered by Passerelle and Documents d’Artistes Bretagne. Shortly before her residence at the art centre, she spent two months in Côte d’Ivoire, the country she left at the age of three. This second journey to the land of her birth, the first having taken place in 2019, enabled her to bring back a large number of photographs, like so much evidence of the country of her origins. Aware of being on the margins, yet still feeling linked to that nation’s story, the exhibition ‘Bonne arrivée chérie coco’ [Welcome darling coco] is a poetic expression of the artist’s view of a country she as yet knows very little about. The exhibition therefore offers a glimpse of the beginnings of a dual culture under construction, as well as the quest for a bi-national identity.

Defining herself as ‘Afropean’, with one European parent and one African, but having been brought up in a European cultural environment, Amélie Caritey recounts her journey as a “search for a home”. Her photographs often show living spaces, or what is between them such as doors, entrances and windows. These elements express an ambivalence, reflecting the feelings of the artist in that place: invitations to enter the intimacy of people’s homes or perhaps obstacles in the way.

Architecture, motifs and colours particularly captivated the artist and they appear in abundance in the exhibition. Amélie Caritey trained in design and has observed very carefully what makes up the environment of the towns and villages she has visited all over the world, compiling her observations into a visual repertoire from which she takes her inspiration. The patterns of the moucharabieh, those pierced partitions providing natural or forced ventilation, have become a leitmotiv in her research. Their forms transform and combine with those of Ivorian pottery in the vases produced by the artist for the exhibition. By also re-interpreting the forms of this traditional Ivorian craft, Amélie Caritey states that she belongs to the country and expresses her wish to sign up to this cultural heritage.

The title of the exhibition, ‘Bonne arrivée chérie coco’, comes from the words of a woman the artist met in an Abidjan market on her first trip. These words therefore become the symbol of the beginning of a new story: Amélie Caritey is now welcome in this country she only previously knew through family anecdotes.

‘Sweet Dreams’ is the first monographic exhibition at a European institution by Philemona Williamson. Williamson, born in 1951 in New York, taught in Schools of Art in the United States and influenced many artists of the younger generations. She came from a modest Afro-American family and in the 1970s studied at Bennington College, then at New York University, resisting the siren calls to minimalism and abstraction very much in vogue at the time. She exhibited in many United States institutions and was awarded the Joan Mitchell Prize In 1997.

Her works all have a story, often personal, sometimes anecdotal. Williamson depicts an America at times full of hope, at times cruel, through the everyday and private lives of adolescents, children and young people. She seeks to transcribe that delicate and so ephemeral moment of the passage to adult life, that moment when children’s games become out of step, out of date or embarrassing. Her figurative paintings are warm and colourful, they attract the eye which tries to understand the narrative in the details. Often, symbolic markers of childhood such as dolls or games are represented, clearly shown in the abundance of movements and shapes. The bodies are black and white, evoking a mixed-race America. The beauty of Williamson’s works lies in the universality of her compositions, in her almost dreamed-up colours and in the infinity of possible interpretations – everyone can project onto them their own joys, pleasures and sorrows.

The title ‘Sweet Dreams’ is taken from a delicious painting on show in the exhibition: two adolescent girls seem to be dreaming of a profusion of cupcakes – those typically American cakes whose appearance overrides their taste. The title recalls the eponymous song of the group the Eurythmics in which ‘Everybody’s looking for something’. As for Williamson, she is looking to represent the at times brutal story of youth as it tips over into the world of adulthood.

Marc Didou (born 1963, Brest, lives and works in Lesneven – FR and Rossiglione – IT) returned to Brest School of Fine Arts to paint and draw but as soon as he left, he took up working with metal again, having done this from childhood in his father’s blacksmith’s forge. Getting back to this substance, its tangible quality, ‟this wayward matter”, which needs air and fire and the hammer to take shape, was like going back to his roots. His choice was reinforced by meeting the American sculptor Mark di Suvero (born 1933, Shanghai) in Brest then in New York, who Introduced him to the public space and the monumental. Finally there was Italy where he lived and continues to show his work, before returning to live and work in Lesneven.

This return to his roots, in every sense of the term, is also a return to nature, the nature surrounding us but also that of the Atomists of ancient Greece – a philosophical and physicist movement which stated that matter is discontinuous and made up of indivisible elements – and he retains the poetry and this ‟vision of the invisible”. Nothing is lost, everything is transformed and what appears was already there, as with the larva and the chrysalis in the butterfly.

From abstraction to natural forms, between reality and illusion, creation begins with a total review and deconstruction of the elements. It comes from industrial waste, from random fragments and Installed structures, the organic principle with the ‘Plasma’ series, the link in the chain, the mirror and the ‘Anamorphoses’; a pipe from a split and distorted pipeline becomes a tree again. By cutting, assembling and welding, the sculptor replays the cycles of life in a resistant material.

The exhibition titles, that are both poetic and descriptive, were chosen by the artist. A verb, ‘Transformât’, the imperfect subjunctive of ‘transformer, to transform’ is used as an opening statement for the pleasure of narrative and the idea of a past and an action that is still ongoing. The bas-reliefs of the series Ouvrefer result from the action of cutting the metal in two and the random shapes this produces. Reversus and Ana-morphé tackle reality and its hidden double, the appearance of form and of point of view, metaphors for thought in the artist’s actions.

Elsewhere is a new commission and the first institutional solo exhibition in the UK by Alia Farid. Working in film, sculpture, and textile, Farid traces histories often marginalised or obscured by the Global North. In her artworks, communities, local practices, and traditions are reconsidered, giving the rhythms of everyday life political significance and potency.

Sixteen hand-woven and embroidered rugs are installed in the ground floor of Passerelle. Drawing from photographs, archival material, and interviews with local people, the works detail cityscapes – buildings, shop fronts, and adverts – that conjure the presence of the Palestinian diaspora in Puerto Rico (USA). Pharmacies and restaurants, owned and operated by Palestinians, are woven alongside brightly coloured mosques and a menu detailing ‘Arabic cuisine’.

The result of a close collaboration with weavers in Samawa, in southern Iraq, the textiles have been crafted through a combination of flat weaving and chain stitching specific to the region. Architecture, script (Arabic and Spanish) and traditional woven motifs recur throughout, illuminating how migration from one region in the Global South to another, brings forth new meanings, forms, and expressions of shared struggle and solidarity. Hanging in many parallel rows, the installation creates panoramic views, and a layering of lived history and daily routine.

Elsewhere is a growing material archive that traces the ways styles, symbols, rituals, and other social devices coalesce across continents. It is the first chapter of an ongoing research project, initially conceived in 2013, which maps Arab and South Asian migration to Latin America and the Caribbean. Other sites of investigation include Trinidad, Cuba, and Mexico. In this accumulative and iterative process, Elsewhere marks one crossroads on an intricate map.

As a counterpoint to this new installation, the Chibayish films series from 2022 and 2023 are also being shown, evoking the impact of the oil industries in particular on the social and ecological fabric of southern Iraq and Kuwait. Chibayish follows young marsh inhabitants as they introduce their homeland and its communities. The result is a stunning portrait of a natural landscape shaped as much by intimate, communal ways of life as by war, resource extraction, and industrialisation.

‘Passerelle is delighted to announce a ground-breaking collaboration with MojennLab, an avant-garde Breton start-up specialising in the creation of ancient and modern legends and optimising the tourist offer. This unique alliance between the art centre and the creative originality of the start-up marks an exciting new venture in the world of contemporary art. MojennLab is recognised for its ability to transcend the limits of the imagination and has joined forces with Passerelle to produce an exhibition that redefines the norms of creativity. The MojennLab combines history and narrative to create unique and unforgettable experiences. MojennLab offers local communities packages of myths tailor-made for each area: dragons, UFOs, brain-eating zombies or reincarnations of Joan of Arc or Charles Martel.

Loïc Le Gall, Director of Passerelle, talks with enthusiasm of this exceptional collaboration: “Passerelle has always been devoted to celebrating art in all its forms. By joining with MojennLab, we have the opportunity to push back the limits of our commitment to artistic innovation and entrepreneurship and present our audience with an incredible artistic experience.” The co-founder of MojennLab, Guildern Le Guenec’h, is delighted with this visibility: “To have the chance to show what we are capable of in an art centre such as La Passerelle demonstrates the original and international ambition of MojennLab. We are here to design the tourism of tomorrow and I am sure that art can help us in some way.”’

Ondine Bertin (1995) is a graduate of the European Academy of Art in Brittany (Brest site) and in 2023-2024 she was awarded a place on the Artist in Residence Workshops programme. She invites us to take part in a unique adventure at Passerelle by inventing a business of the imagination specialising in the creation of legends for regions that do not have their own. Hers is a caustic world, gently mocking the world of business and its codes, from the sometimes absurd teambuilding, to the new Franglais thrown up by the new professions, and examines the notion of the purpose of work, well-being and achievement.

Her MojennLab business, a portemanteau word combining Mojenn, Breton for legend, and Lab for laboratory, is sufficiently unusual and plausible to be almost credible in its role as a tourism consultancy. Whereas the words are perfectly believable, the images betray a use of artificial intelligence with room for improvement – which the artist demands – that often causes glitches (unexpected minor digital errors) with horrible results such as deformed faces.

Imagining a scenario that could be real, she questions the place of truth and information in today’s world where fake news has become almost indistinguishable from real news. How is history written? How is it sometimes falsified? These are serious questions which Ondine Bertin develops in her exhibition under the cover of her humour that is sometimes dark and sometimes simple and basic.

Passerelle has invited Atelier Magma to put on a unique joint exhibition. Atelier Magma is an association created in 2023 by and for a group of artists and designers from Brest and Finistère. The objective is to bring together artists from the local area to experience and manage a collaborative workspace. And for a very good reason, as times of sharing, meeting and reflecting stimulate creativity and promote the cross-fertilisation of practices. The need to do this was obvious: you had to get together in order to exist and create.

So this group has no particular coherence or common artistic practice. The people in the group know each other partly from an experience at the former Cercle Naval in Brest – the city of Brest kindly made available artists’ workshops in 2021 for local artists who responded to a call for projects – and partly from the emergence of the Art Schools of Brittany, in particular the Brest site of the European Academy of Art in Brittany. The members of Atelier Magma have never exhibited together and for some of them this is their first opportunity to show their works in the setting of a contemporary art centre.

The exhibition brings together 17 artists or collectives as members of Magma. Although the body of work varies hugely, one theme may be perceived: notions of traces and memory. “What remains of a collaboration between artists and the inhabitants of a place? Which moments of life should be preserved and in what forms? Which reality should we safeguard or modify?” are all questions demanding to be answered when you visit the exhibition. Through the clues and propositions offered by many of these artists, an important and implicit questioning gradually emerges: what is the place of the artist in our current society that is so polarised?