Abraham Poincheval’s performances involve exploring the world and experimenting with time through unique living conditions. He reconsiders how we relate to our immediate surroundings, inspired by myths and stories, through experiences such as living underground in a hole measuring 60 centimetres in diameter, sensing the rhythm of the mineral kingdom by spending a week in a stone, and living 20 metres above the ground, confined in emptiness.
For the Biennale, Abraham Poincheval is surveying the cloud canopy. Video images partly disclose the expedition that the artist went on to explore the sky in search of a shifting landscape, where mountains and furrows are undone and reborn with every passing moment. Contemplated, mapped and interpreted, menacing or protective — clouds are also prized in the age of global warming. Several dozens of metres up in the air, Abraham Poincheval walked through a borderless territory consisting of water, terrestrial particles and celestial dust.