8 June – 8 September 2024

With the sixteen Fellows in residence at Villa Medici:

Pierre Adrian, Mali Arun, Ismaïl Bahri, Séverine Ballon, Hélène Bertin,

Alix Boillot, Madison Bycroft, Laure Cadot, Céline Curiol, Ophélie Dozat, Hamedine Kane, Kapwani Kiwanga, Laure Limongi, Morad Montazami, Jean-Charles de Quillacq and Justinien Tribillon

Curators:

Cecilia Canziani and Ilaria Gianni, with Giulia Gaibisso (IUNO collective)

As it does every year when summer is just around the corner, the French Academy in Rome stages an exhibition of the projects created by its sixteen Fellows as their year-long residency at Villa Medici draws to a close. On this occasion, the artworks leave the intimacy of the studios behind to come face-to-face with the public in the exhibition galleries.

Running from 8 June to 8 September 2024 and commissioned by the Rome-based collective IUNO, the exhibition entitled A più voci (In several voices) suggests one possible group score produced by individual artists. Whether artists, authors, architects, researchers or art theorists, the Fellows are linked by their shared experience at Villa Medici, which creates some unexpected resonances and collaborations.

The main features of the exhibition include the diversity of the artistic practices represented, from literature to sound creation, via sculpture, heritage restoration, architecture, photography and film. Recurrent themes emerge from the many projects: the plant world, the body and its transformations, forms of resistance, the dialectic between exterior and interior, and, of course, the figure of Rome itself, a real and imaginary city.

During their year in the Italian capital, the Fellows are encouraged to experience the residency as a laboratory in which to experiment, offering the chance to embark on long-term research, follow new paths, and to allow themselves to be surprised or guided by what the encounter with other artistic practices and geographies produces. The exhibition is the extension of this experience. It is also an opportunity to explore how to format projects that fall outside conventional exhibition categories. How can ongoing research be brought to life? How can the visual and living arts be articulated?

The exhibition includes a performative component: on Saturday 8 June, the Villa Medici will stage La Nuit des Cabanes, an evening of performances, concerts, readings and screenings created by the artists and researchers in residence at Villa Medici, as well as by several guests from the international cultural scene. Free entry from 5pm to 12.30am – reservation required.

As part of the exhibition, a multilingual mediation program in collaboration with NABA, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti, carried out by the students of the two-year MA Visual Arts and Curatorial Studies program and the MA Visual Arts and Curatorial Studies program on the Rome Campus.

Fellows’ publication

To coincide with the exhibition, Villa Medici is publishing a book about the research and projects carried out by the Fellows during their year-long residency in Rome, enriched with contributions from authors invited to put the Fellows’ work into perspective. With contributions from: Franck Balland, Sally Bonn, Samir Boumediene, Federica Bueti, Pierre Caye, Christophe Degeurce, Frère Renaud Escande, Oulimata Gueye, Hélène Guichard, Julie Hascoët, Stéphane Ibars, George Kafka, Cynthia Lefebvre, Horya Makhlouf, Anne Montaron, Morad Montazami, Joël Riff, Maboula Soumahoro, Justin Randolph Thompson, Tanguy Viel.

Video interviews with the Fellows

Click on the following link to find out more about the sixteen:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLG9TvpYZ5rpYQpuLTVgl4HtTDHFQS1Hq6