Hello, I am an independent self-taught curator based in Paris. I conceive exhibitions as performative protocols that can be activated by myself or others, unfolding through contingent interactions rather than static display. My curatorial practice is drawn to artistic strategies that embrace destruction, material transformation, and participatory engagement, questioning the exhibition space and its possibilities.
For several years, I have been conducting an ongoing research on disasters and their iconographies, focusing on the ways catastrophes are aestheticized, archived, and re-enacted within artistic and curatorial discourses. This inquiry extends to the traces of lost, vanished, or missing artworks, culminating in the Oblivion Collection, a participatory online archive dedicated to gathering remnants and spectral evidence of disappeared art. By engaging with the visual and conceptual residues of destruction, my curatorial research interrogates what remains, what is forgotten, and how disappearance itself might become an artistic gesture.
StudioPoush
153 Avenue Jean Jaures 93300 AubervilliersRepresented bypal project
39 Rue de Grenelle
75007 Paris
Shrimps Society
Location
Cité Internationale des Arts
18 rue de l’Hôtel de Ville
75004 Paris
Dates
11 January 2021
26 March 2021
Co-curated withMamadou Diakite
Photo credits
César Bardoux, Roy Köhnke
Press
Thomas Conchou for *Duuu Radio
Artists
César Bardoux, Roy Köhnke, Anna Ternon
PREAMBLE
We, the shrimp inhabitants of the aquarium currently located at 48.85428, 2.35688 declare the creation of the Shrimps Society nation on this 31st day of January 2021.
Shrimps Society is a self-governing group of shrimp that recognizes the right of each and every shrimp to live in elegance and complete freedom. This Constitution specifies the conditions under which our group is organized.
Article 1
Shrimps Society is a space which allows each of its inhabitants to enjoy all known pleasures, without detriment to the pleasure or freedom of its other inhabitants.
Citizens of this nation are all White Pearl shrimp placed by the human hand, known as the right of the sea. Citizenship is also available by birthright to children of Shrimps Society shrimp.
For safety reasons, it is impossible to welcome any other living creature into this nation. To avoid the risk of extinction of their society, the White Pearls live apart from other living creatures.
An exception is made for plants within the Shrimps Society, which also have legal personality and the right to citizenship.
Article 2
In its 61x41x58cm tub, national sovereignty belongs directly to the inhabitants of the Shrimps Society.
Total freedom reigns. Every citizen obeys his or her own rules and commands. The law resides in self-government, in which each citizen has his or her own legal code. Thus, the Shrimps Society is based on the operation of multiple sovereignties, taking into account the government of each citizen.
No one person or entity can claim to exercise this sovereignty.
Article 3
By their very nature, which obliges them to organize the different levels of their lives as a group, the citizens of the Shrimps Society agree to respect and protect their fellow man. Everyone is naturally good.
Article 4
All forms of work are abolished. Because it's not necessary for their survival, the idea of physically transforming their environment doesn't exist.
Common things are for everyone's free use. Private property does not exist.
The idea of physical creation and manual labor can only have a divine or external origin.
Article 5
Within the Shrimps Society, rights are the same for all, regardless of sex, shape, color, swimming style, feeding habits, political administrations, personal hobbies or artistic interests. This applies as much to the White Pearls as to the plants with which they share their ecosystem.
In this way, all cultures are taken into account and accepted as they are. This knowledge, which defines the norms and ways of life of each shrimp within the Shrimps Society (as mentioned at the beginning of article 5), is personal and therefore ephemeral. As such, they are renewed as many times as there are living beings in the Society.
Article 6
The Shrimps Society has neither an army nor a police force. Which sets the stage for a perfect utopia.
The nation forbids itself to wage war.
The nation is founded on the values of peace and tolerance. Citizens may not be pursued, sought after, arrested, detained or tried.
Article 7
Group life ensures the regular functioning of cohesion and the continuity of the State.
These interrelationships make all shrimp naturally empathetic.
Citizens move in groups of ten. In turn, one shrimp takes the reins and steers the collective movement. This organization, necessary to their survival, brings each shrimp together on a daily basis. Movement groups are established randomly and remain for a short time (3-4 days).
Article 8
This union makes it possible for shrimp to carry out their most important daily activities: eating and leisure.
Pleasure, elegance and refinement are the sole goals of the people of this utopia.
Citizens value their appearance and place a premium on aesthetics, the only element that gives meaning to their lives.
Article 9
The nation receives assistance from humans.
The day-to-day activities of the Shrimps Society are made possible by the collaboration of human shrimps. This relationship is established to enable them to expand their leisure, culture and elegance.
In exchange, the Shrimps Society agrees to give humans the keys to their utopia.
Article 10
Reports are made on condition that foreign nations recognize and agree to the constitution of the Shrimps Society.