The Dead (A drifting, dying marine mammal), 2019

polystyrene, polyurethane resin, fiberglass, steel skeleton

The Mythteller, 2019

synthetic voice, sound spatialization

28:42 mins, loop

Courtesy the artist & CLEARING.

Presentation at the 23rd Biennale of Sydney was made possible with the generous support from Art Makers and from the UK/Australia Season Patrons Board, the British Council and the Australian Government as part of the UK/Australia Season and generous assistance from the Embassy of France in Australia and l’Institut français

Marguerite Humeau’s work stages the crossing of great distances in time and space, transitions between animal and mineral, and encounters between personal desires and natural forces. The work explores the possibility of communication between worlds and the means by which knowledge is generated in the absence of evidence or through the impossibility of reaching the object of investigation. Humeau weaves factual events into speculative narratives, therefore enabling unknown, invisible, or extinct forms of life to erupt in grandiose splendour. Combining prehistory, occult biology and science fiction in a disconcerting spectacle – the works resuscitate the past, conflate subterranean and subcutaneous, all the while updating the quest genre for the information age.

“Here at the surface of the ocean, floats the heavy, deflated flesh of a marine mammal, upside down, half submerged, its fins: wide open, facing up. The body has the translucence of human skin and, at the bottom, where it touches water, a spreading bruise of purple shades. It is sometimes heard shuddering through death, breathing back to life, abruptly, but quietly. Soon it might just be floating waste, but for now, it looks at the cosmos, in the search for answers. The body seems to slowly elevate itself. Its soul is later heard circling around the space.”  

– Marguerite Humeau

THE DEAD

Marguerite Humeau, 2021

Here at the surface of the ocean,
floats the heavy, deflated flesh of a marine mammal,
upside down, half submerged,
its fins: wide open, facing up.
The body has the translucence of human skin and,
at the bottom, where it touches water,
a spreading bruise of purple shades.
It is sometimes heard shuddering through death,
breathing back to life, abruptly, but quietly.
Soon it might just be floating waste,
but for now, it looks at the cosmos, in the search for answers.
The body seems to slowly elevate itself.
Its soul is later heard circling around the space.