DUO SHOW / ''The miracle of the sun"
Opening reception on Saturday, March 15, from 4 PM to 9 PM.
MARGUERITE BORNHAUSER AND MARION FLAMENT
The miracle had been foretold for three months already. The lady, dressed all in white, chose three young shepherds as her messengers.
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The village of Fátima in Portugal has only a few thousand souls. Yet, the news spread like wildfire. On the morning of October 13, 1917, 70,000 people—devout believers, skeptics, the merely curious, and those with nothing better to do—gathered under the pouring rain. An eclectic group, each seeking their own truths, their own fictions.
The miracle kept them waiting. Then, the sky opened, the clouds parted, and the silver disk began its frantic course. Suddenly, the grass was no longer grass but flickering red, yellow, and violet hues. The sun no longer burned the eyes but led them in an erratic, jolting, prophetic dance. All saw, but not all believed.
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In this solar dance, two artists found each other. One a photographer, the other a sculptor, both attuned to the movement of light, the metamorphosis of materials, the slipping of reality into imagined, spiritual, poetic realms. Together, they inhabited the remnants, welcomed the words, and brought their gestures into dialogue to erect cathedrals of light around Fátima. In this exchange between images and matter, past and present, stories are reinvented, opening new realms of imagination and resonance.
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A century later, the echo of the miracle endures. See how light, tirelessly, shapes the world as it pleases. It envelops and sculpts, alters and illuminates, becomes prism and mirror. Mirage or miracle—now, it is your turn to bear witness.
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Excerpt from a text by Eléonore Simon (photographer and independent writer).
Marguerite Bornhauser is a French photographer born in 1989, living and working in Paris. Her academic journey began with studies in literature and journalism at the Sorbonne, where she developed a growing interest in photography. In 2014, she participated in a residency at the Weißensee Academy of Art in Berlin before earning her degree from the École nationale supérieure de la photographie in Arles in 2015.
Bornhauser's artistic approach is characterized by an intense exploration of color and light, creating images with vivid, saturated tones. She draws inspiration from various art forms, including literature and painting, to compose photographs that evoke unique and poetic atmospheres. Her work stands out for its abstract approach, where shapes and colors take precedence, inviting the viewer to interpret freely.
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In 2019, she held her first institutional solo exhibition, Moisson Rouge, at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris. This project blends abstract compositions and close-ups, offering captionless images with open-ended meanings. The exhibition's title references Red Harvest, a novel by Dashiell Hammett, highlighting the influence of American noir literature on her work.
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Alongside her exhibitions, Bornhauser expands her photographic research through editorial projects. Her first self-published book, Plastic Colors, was shortlisted for MACK’s First Book Award in 2015. She later published 8 in 2018, Moisson Rouge in 2019, Percevoir in 2021, and Back to Dust in 2023. These works reflect her ongoing commitment to exploring the narrative and aesthetic possibilities of photography.
The recognition of her work extends beyond France. In 2020, she was awarded the Emerging Photographer of the Year prize by Photo London. Her works are also part of prestigious public collections, such as the Maison Européenne de la Photographie and the Philharmonie de Paris. Represented by the Carlos Carvalho gallery in Portugal, her work is exhibited in numerous institutions, galleries, and festivals worldwide, attesting to the universality and relevance of her artistic vision.
Marion Flament's work is built around places, materials, and the light that shapes them, translating into installations, sculptures, and images.
She seeks to create fictions that present a stretched reality, drawing inspiration from sudden and subtle shifts in visual perception that lend time a dramatic quality. She arranges points of conjunction, often focusing on key moments to capture a freeze-frame effect. This approach reveals the strangeness of transformed time—zooming in on the backdrop that structures our daily lives. This is why Marion frequently employs trompe-l'œil and illusions, a connection to the fictions she encountered in theater.
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Light serves as the vehicle for this distortion, possessing a unique ability to reveal the state of matter. Marion uses it to shape the ordinary elements that make up our environment. Site-specific work is also a key dimension of her practice, allowing her to explore these moments of transition. As a result, the spaces in which she exhibits directly influence the pieces she creates.
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