THE MIRACLE OF THE SUN
DUO SHOW
Marguerite Bornhauser - Marion Flament
Exhibition from July 7 to 20, 2025
📍 La Cour Cachée, 16 rue Tour Fabre, 13200 Arles
🕦 Open every day from 10am to 7pm
As part of the Rencontres d'Arles 2025 Off Festival, the Porte B. gallery presents The Miracle of the Sun, an exhibition born from the collaboration between photographer Marguerite Bornhauser and sculptor Marion Flament. This exhibition echoes the one presented simultaneously at the RĂ©sidence de la Madeleine in Arles, where Marion Flament unveils works from her artistic residency, alongside several pieces created with Marguerite Bornhauser around the same theme.
"The miracle had been foretold for three months already. The lady, dressed all in white, chose three young shepherds as her messengers. The village of Fátima in Portugal has only a few thousand inhabitants. Yet, the news spread like wildfire. On the morning of October 13, 1917, 70,000 people—devout, curious, skeptical, and those with nothing better to do—gathered in the pouring rain. An eclectic group of people in search of as many truths as fictions."
The miracle was a long time coming. Then, the sky opened, the clouds parted, and the silver disc began its wild journey. Suddenly, the grass was no longer grass but shimmering red, yellow, or purple. The sun no longer burned the eye but accompanied it in an incongruous, jerky dance. Prophetic. Everyone saw, but not everyone believed.
In this solar dance, two artists found each other. One a photographer, the other a sculptor, both sensitive to the movements of light, the metamorphoses of materials, the slippage of reality into imaginative, spiritual, and poetic realms. They then inhabited the ruins, welcomed the stories, and juxtaposed their gestures to erect cathedrals of light around Fátima. In this dialogue between images and materials, past and present, narratives are reinvented, opening new imaginaries and spaces of resonance.
Marguerite Bornhauser is a French photographer born in 1989, living and working in Paris. Her academic journey began with studies in literature and journalism at the Sorbonne, where she developed a growing interest in photography. In 2014, she participated in a residency at the Weißensee Academy of Art in Berlin, before graduating from the École nationale supérieure de la photographie in Arles in 2015.
Bornhauser's artistic approach is characterized by an intense exploration of color and light, creating images with vivid and saturated tones. She draws inspiration from various art forms, including literature and painting, to compose photographs that evoke unique and poetic atmospheres. Her work is distinguished by an abstract approach, where forms and colors predominate, inviting the viewer to a personal interpretation.
In 2019, she presented her first institutional solo exhibition, *Red Harvest*, at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris. This project blends abstract compositions and close-ups, offering captionless images with open meanings. The exhibition's title references Dashiell Hammett's novel *Red Harvest*, highlighting the influence of African American literature on her work.
Alongside her exhibitions, Bornhauser enriches her photographic research with editorial projects. Her first self-published book, *Plastic Colors*, was shortlisted for MACK's First Book Award in 2015. She subsequently published *8* in 2018, *Red Harvest* in 2019, *Perceive* in 2021, and *Back to Dust* in 2023. These works reflect her ongoing commitment to exploring the narrative and aesthetic possibilities of photography.
Recognition of her work extends beyond French borders. In 2020, she received the Emerging Photographer of the Year award from Photo London. Her works are also featured in prestigious public collections, such as the Maison Européenne de la Photographie and the Philharmonie de Paris. Represented by the Carlos Carvalho Gallery in Portugal, her work is exhibited in numerous institutions, galleries, and festivals worldwide, attesting to the universality and relevance of her artistic approach.
Marion Flament's work is built around the places, materials and light that constitute them, to be translated on the scale of installation, sculpture and image.
She seeks to create fictions that present a distorted reality, drawing inspiration from sudden and minute shifts in visual perception, thus imbuing time with a dramatic quality. She orchestrates points of convergence, often by framing a key moment to create a freeze-frame effect. This is a way of revealing the strangeness of transformed time: zooming in on the scenery that shapes our daily lives. This is why Marion frequently employs trompe-l'Ĺ“il and illusion, a connection to the fictions she encountered in the theater.
Light is the vehicle for this distortion, possessing the unique ability to reveal the state of matter. Marion uses it to shape the ordinary elements that make up our environment. Site-specific work is also a dimension she incorporates into her practice, allowing her to explore these tipping points. Thus, the spaces where she exhibits directly inspire the pieces she creates.
