Starting on November 25, 2022, French artist Alix Marie and U.S. photographer Paul Mpagi Sepuya will present two artistic positions at PHOXXI, the Temporary House of Photography at the Deichtorhallen Hamburg, that use a variety of artistic methods to explore the human body, origin, and gender.
In her latest body of work, French artist Alix Marie (*1989 in Bobigny, France) draws on the myth of Styx to explore water deities and their contemporary manifestations, the intersection between the body and its representation, alongside experimenting with the expanded possibilities of photography. In this exhibition the deity materialises in two forms. Firstly as an immersive installation, exploring the cavities of the body and the ambiguous duality of internal and external space and protective environments.
The installation invites you to walk inside it and find your way to the center. In the other spaces, the deity takes on a human form. In the darkness, the goddess appears suspended in the center of the room, kneeling, naked, and boldly returning her gaze to the viewer. Embodied by Marie's longtime collaborator, performer and writer Nina Boukhrief, the goddess's voice surrounds the space, reflecting on death, light, and life. With this project, for Marie the idea of going through and seeing through was omnipresent. Going through an experience, as with the pandemic or mourning, going through spatially translated in the installation with the labyrinthic form, as well as seeing through: with the use of translucent fabric or seeing through the body with the use of x-ray.
Styx was originally commissioned by Photoworks and the Ballarat International Foto Biennale, 2021.
