This event explores the friction zones between the marvelous and the scientific, knowledge and beliefs, through artistic and theoretical practices that question how science can produce the imaginary and the marvelous can produce forms of knowledge.
Esban, the higher school of fine arts in Nîmes, is an institution of higher education and like any good school, it organizes beautiful things. The event will start on Thursday, April 2 at 5:30 pm at the showcase of the museum of old Nîmes for the opening of the exhibition “Nous sommes au moins trente mille dans cette nuit.”
This exhibition, coordinated by the artist Sophie Blet, was collectively designed by third and fourth-year students from Esban. It presents a confrontation between their original creations and a selection of objects from the museum’s collection. The pedagogical and artistic project initiated and accompanied by Arnaud Vasseux aims to experiment with the possibilities of presenting heritage objects in relation to the present.
The partnership between the two neighboring institutions is part of the monumental history of the building, which became in 1910 a multidisciplinary Palace of Fine Arts to accommodate both the Conservatory of music, the School of Fine Arts, and then the museum of old Nîmes. With Romane Coppens Bioux, Lucie Douillet, Alice Faccani, Charlotte Jonon, Morgane Keraghel, Théa Pirot, Chloé Bourgade, Mariana Guzmán.
The second day of the art and research meeting will take place on Friday, April 4 under the theme: Marvelous ~ Scientific: experimental connections. Supported by the pedagogical projects carried by Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc and Lila Neutre, this day offers to explore the friction zones between the marvelous and the scientific, knowledge and beliefs, through artistic and theoretical practices that question how science can produce the imaginary and the marvelous can produce forms of knowledge.
Far from any binary opposition between knowledge and superstition, the day invites us to recognize that the marvelous is not the opposite of the scientific, but a possible vector of questioning, a tool of decentering, a driver for discoveries and therefore research.
While contemporary Western knowledge seems to embody in increasingly efficient technological devices for measurement, calculation, and visualization, it seems necessary (even urgent) to rethink our relationship to experience, situated knowledge, technologies, and imaginaries.
The works of invited artists and researchers navigate between observation and divination, between analysis and poetry, rationality and magic. Rather than opposing these terms, they consider alliances, experimental connections that outline new epistemologies and allow us to consider the marvelous as a critical and heuristic tool.
The day revolves around exchanges in pairs that will discuss singular or collective ways of reading images, bodies, the sky, and the world.
This day is the second of a series of meetings dedicated to research-creation organized at the Higher School of Fine Arts in Nîmes. It is part of the GARDENER program (jointly led by Esban, Nîmes University, and the CHU) which promotes interdisciplinary collaborations between artists, researchers, and partners around the notion of vulnerability and new forms of knowledge production and sharing.
This new event, which will take place in two stages between spring 2026 and 2027, will jointly question reason and enchantment, protocol and magic, art and research.
Find the complete program by clicking here
