In Case We Die

"In Case We Die"

from Wednesday, December 11, 2024 to Monday, March 17, 2025

Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Saint-Denis

Between 2008 and 2011, Sophie Zénon devoted several sections to the representation of the dead body, brought together in a cycle entitled “In Case We Die”. In the Occident, violence and death are omnipresent themes in the media, yet our society is wary of having direct contact with the corpse, which we banish from our sight, contrary to the practices of previous centuries. In a context of denial of death, how do we depict the infigurable?



Sophie Zénon's work is presented in the room devoted to the collections of the former Hôtel-Dieu, a place where the suffering body was cared for both physically and spiritually, and where life and death interpenetrate on a daily basis. Her photographs draw on a variety of iconographic traditions, evoking a Baroque aesthetic associated with the Vanitas. Her poetic, enigmatic universe condenses a strategy of taming finitude, imbued with spirituality. Through the delicate treatment of light and color, and the use of blur and motion, Sophie Zénon reanimates the bodies of the deceased, permeating the boundary between the two worlds.