HEAVEN AND HELL

 

Home is our first universe. A cosmos in which our imagination can build both comforting dreams and new ramparts when the old ones fall, rebuilding foundations and bridges so that we never stop growing inwardly. Heaven and Hell is a collection of fragments from all the homes where we have found shelter, from all those we have dreamed of living in, whose broken walls reveal stories of transformed realities. In this place of comfort and discomfort, objects are like parts of the body that carry memories.

 

Through their photographic, performative and introspective gestures, Nhu Xuan Hua and Vimala Pons have brought to the fore the link between body-action/woman-body, the idea of presenting oneself as a subject and not as an object. The two artists offer a hybrid exhibition where experience has taken over the space, as if to find a new refuge in which to continue their construction. Several levels of simultaneous narratives invite a poetic vertigo in perpetual motion: whether outside or inside oneself, imbalance represents the contamination of the image by reality.

 

Creation 2024 at the Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles

 

Writing and design: Nhu Xuan Hua and Vimala Pons

Photography & Film: Nhu Xuan Hua

Performer & Model: Vimala Pons

Musical composition & Text: Vimala Pons

 

Set designers: Félix Gesnouin, Chloé Guerbois

Nanterre-Amandiers CDN workshop with Marie Maresca

Thomas Laporte

 

Costumes and styling: Rudy Simba Betty, Marine Peyraud

Make-up and SFX: Lisa Michalik

Hair: Quentin Lafforgue

Manicure: Madga Stachura

Choreographer: Maeva Berthelot

 

Director of photography: Marc Pritchard

Colour grading: Clément Le Penven

1st assistant photographer: Loc Boyle

2nd assistant photographer: Ella Bats

Digital operator: Otto Diekgerdes

Set assistants: Yoann Kim, Hugo van Manen

Photo post-production: Nhu Xuan Hua

Make-up and SFX assistant: Justine Landais

Hair assistant: May Kilama

Masks: Baptiste Audousset

Set builders: Jérôme Chrétien, Luc Fivian LFE, Francois Mark, Charlotte Wallet

Construction assistant: Elvire Caillon

Set design assistants: Elijah Deroche, Elfried Gratas, Arthur Jacquet, Timothée Jaouen, Diego Lourenco, Lola Tual

Costume assistant: Coco Blanvillain

Silhouettes: Louison Coulom, Lucie Bourdon

Set photographer: Baptiste Gondouin

Music mix: Victor Praud – Studio d’ombre

Stage manager and pyrotechnician: Benjamin Bertrand

 

Art Film: Rebecca Salvadori

 

Exhibition co-produced by TOUT ÇA / QUE ÇA and Les Rencontres d’Arles

 

Co-productions: MC2: Maison de la Culture de Grenoble, Comédie de Genève (Switzerland), CDN Orléans /Centre-Val de Loire, Centre Dramatique National de Tours – Théâtre Olympia

 

Residency support: Villa Belleville – Paris, le CENTQUATRE-Paris, Plateforme 2 Pôles Cirque en Normandie – La Brèche à Cherbourg

Artistic coordination and production: Adeline Ferrante – Fougue

Administration, production: Mathieu Hilléreau – Les Indépendances

Shooting production: Elsa Puangsudrac, Dounia Chah, Greg Turchi and Pierre Le Dauphin – Farago

Studio: Studio La Factory, Espace Lumière

Special thanks to: RVZ for the video, and Studio La Factory for the lighting

 

Exhibition production management: Cécile Nedelec – Les Rencontres d’Arles

Exhibition scenography: Nhu Xuan Hua and Vimala Pons, Amanda Antunes – Les Rencontres d’Arles