At the time of the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the reopening of the Collège des Bernardins, Abdelkader Benchamma proposes to transform the whole of the nave by the use of immense, profuse, abstract and dynamic forms which will invade the space and enter into dialogue with the architectural lines of this place steeped in history.
How to make perceptible the invisible forces of the infinitely large while creating a space which, while remaining poetic, succeeds in disturbing our usual perception of the world? These recurring questions in the work of Abdelkader Benchamma will be thought here on a completely different scale and will plunge the visitor into a space outside the world, and outside of time.
Inspired by the research of Georges Lemaître, priest astronomer and physicist who was one of the first men to have thought about the expansion of the universe, the artist Abdelkader Benchamma , known for his mural drawings designed to the scale of the architecture, is invited to create a vast installation designed specifically for the nave of the Collège des Bernardins.
Georges Lemaître, now considered to be the inventor of the “Big Bang” theory, thought very early on of the remoteness of galaxies and formalized the permanent growth of the universe in parallel with his religious practice. To evoke this primitive moment, Lemaître spoke poetically of the “disappeared echo of the formation of worlds”. Between belief and science, the artist's universe resonates with the research of the astronomer priest.
Abdelkader Benchamma's drawings are inspired by visual scenarios that come from reflections on space and its physical reality, its limits and its areas of contact with mental spaces. They work on diversions, modulations of objects testifying to possible dysfunctions in our relationship to places and things. Slippage of the real, intrusion of the invisible, indeterminate materials in transformation, tiny catastrophes constitute certain elements of his work.