The preview screening of Ferdinandea, l’île éphémère will be followed by a conversation between Clément Cogitore and Kathryn Weir, the exhibition’s chief curator at the Mucem and will be moderated by Alexia Fabre. The event will conclude with a book-signing session.
Conversation and preview screening of
Ferdinandea, l’île éphémère
About
Ferdinandea, l’île éphémère is Clément Cogitore’s latest project, inspired by the story of a volcanic island that emerged in the Mediterranean in the 19th century before sinking back beneath the waves a few years later. A videographer, visual artist, storyteller, and filmmaker, Cogitore uses this extraordinary geological phenomenon as the starting point for an experimental fiction that blends historical documents with a dystopian journey.
Courtesy of Atelier EXB
With Alexia Fabre
In 1993, Alexia Fabre was admitted to the entrance competition of the École nationale du Patrimoine and became curator of the Musée départemental des Hautes-Alpes in Gap that same year. At the end of 1998, she was recruited by the Val-de-Marne Department to lead the contemporary art museum project. She wrote its scientific and cultural project, which secured State approval as well as financial support from both the State and the Regional Council for the construction of the museum (2003–2005).
She served as artistic director alongside Frank Lamy for Nuit Blanche Paris in 2009 and 2011, for the exhibition La Lune, du voyage réel aux voyages imaginaires (RMN Grand Palais) in 2019, and for the Biennale L’art de la joie in Quebec in 2017.
From 2018 to 2022, she presided over Videomuseum, the professional network for public collections of modern and contemporary art, and taught at the École du Louvre. She has also been a member of the acquisition committee of the Musée national d’Art moderne, associate curator of the Grand Paris Express, President of the Prix Dauphine for contemporary art, and a member of the Prix Emerige.
From 2022 to March 2025, she was Director of Beaux-Arts de Paris, where she championed values of diversity and inclusivity, the engagement and recognition of artists in society, and contemporary cultural issues. She curated the 17th Biennale of Lyon (September 2024–January 2025): Les voix des fleuves / Crossing the Water. She currently serves as a member of the Scientific Council for the Bicentennial of Photography.
In September 2025, she joins the Centre Pompidou as Deputy Director of the Centre Pompidou Francilien in Massy.
Clément Cogitore
Born in Colmar in 1983, Clément Cogitore lives and works between Paris and Berlin. After studying at Le Fresnoy, the French National Studio of Contemporary Art, Clément Cogitore developed his artistic practice at the crossroads of contemporary art and cinema. Combining film, video, installations and photographs, Cogitore questions the modalities of cohabitation between humankind and its own images and representations. Rituality, collective memory, figuration of the sacred, as well as a particular idea of the permeability of worlds are leading trends in his practice.
His works have been presented at major international institutions such as the Palais de Tokyo, the Centre Pompidou, MoMA (New York), and the Lyon Biennale. The recipient of numerous awards — including the Prix Marcel Duchamp (2018) — he has been teaching at the Beaux-Arts de Paris since 2018.
His first feature film, Neither Heaven nor Earth (2015), was selected for Cannes’ Critics’ Week and received several awards. In 2019, he directed Rameau’s Les Indes galantes for the Paris Opera, hailed by The New York Times as one of the best opera productions of the year. His second film, Goutte d’Or (2022), was screened at Cannes and shortlisted to represent France at the Oscars.
Clément Cogitore is represented by Chantal Crousel Consulting, Paris and Galerie Elisabeth and Reinhard Hauff, Stuttgart.
Kathryn Weir
A curator, writer and art historian based in Paris, Kathryn Weir was co-curator of the Lagos Biennial (2021-2024), director of the MADRE museum in Naples (2020-23) and director of multidisciplinary programs at the Centre Pompidou. In 2015 she created Cosmopolis, a platform for research-based, socially engaged and collaborative practices, and in 2017 the festival ‘MOVE: performance, dance, moving image’.
From 2006-14 head of international art and cinema at the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA), Brisbane, she was also a co-curator of the 5th, 6th and 7th editions of the Asia Pacific Triennial. Publications include Jimmie Durham : humanity is not a completed project (2026), Beauty and Terror : sites of colonialism and fascism (2024), Rethinking Nature (2024), Utopia Dystopia : the myth of progress seen from the south (2024), Clément Cogitore : Ferdinandea (2023), Claire Tabouret: I am spacious, singing flesh (2022), Cosmopolis #1.5: Enlarged Intelligence (2018), Gorilla (2013), Sculpture is Everything (2012), The view from elsewhere (2009) and Modern Ruin (2008).
Program - Paris Photo 2025
See the full Paris Photo program.