Mickaûl Vivier

Mickaûl Vivier was born in Bayonne in 1983 and studied at the École Européenne Supérieure de l'Image in Angoulême and the Universiiy of Poitiers, before working for four years at the Palais de Tokyo contemporary art centre in Paris. Since 2012, he has been teaching video and cyber art at the École d'Art de l'Agglomération Côte - Basque Adour in Bayonne.

For this exhibition he is showing an installation entitled Histoire naturelle-Natura istorioa, combining drawings, sculpture and video in a retranscription of the legend of the Chambre d'Amour in Anglet. This tells the tragic tale of a pair of lovers who set themselves a tryst in a seaside cave, where they were trapped by the rising tide and drowned.

"My interest lies in exploring our relationship with the environment that surrounds us. The Basque Country is rich in myths and legends and a fertile place for fantasy and fiction. In my work, I superimpose and intermingle these different layers of reality. Histoire naturelle-Natura istorioa fits into this approach.

"The cave of the legend, rebaptised as a "chamber of love", is still there, behind a car park at the beach known as Les Sables d'Or. Its floor is covered with inscriptions of names and hearts pierced with arrows, but also with empty beer cans, cigarette butts and used condoms. This contrast between romantic myth and reality is the basis for my installation.

"Its purpose is to question our perception of our environment by drawing attention to the different ways in which we represent it, both in the past and in the present. By means of naturalist drawings, I illustrate the flora and fauna of our surroundings. Using 3D images, I show places that are inaccessible to Man. Through myths, I make sense of the natural phenomena that I witness. All of these are languages that enable us to re-write the world."