Hi Alexis, where are you joining us from today?

A.P. I'm in Paris.

What are you working on at the moment?

A.P. I'm currently preparing adaptations of the works you saw in Gdansk for upcoming exhibitions, while also developing new pieces that will be presented in Italy and Switzerland over the next few months. I'm not at the studio right now, but I'll head there as soon as we finish this conversation.

Let's start from the beginning. Alexis, how long were you in Gdansk?

A.P. I first came to Gdansk in 2024 and stayed for just under two months. Then I returned in 2025 for another three weeks. A few weeks after that second visit, Oriana and I started working on the concept that eventually became this exhibition. Initially, my visits were research-oriented. It was my first time in Poland and my first time in Gdańsk, so I spent a lot of time observing, collecting materials and getting to know the place. Gradually, we both felt there was enough research to develop into an exhibition and to produce new works. In total, we've been collaborating for about a year and a half.

O.R. That's right. During Alexis' first residency–part of an exchange programme from Strasbourg–he collaborated mainly with other curators at Łaźnia, while I happened to share the same office. We talked about his work from time to time, but nothing was planned yet.

When he returned for his second residency, we finally had the opportunity to sit down together and discuss a possible collaboration. Over time, the project evolved through several versions, adapting to different spaces, budgets and institutional possibilities. What began as a research residency gradually developed into something much closer to Alexis' current artistic practice. I'm especially happy because I recently learned that these works will continue travelling to other venues, which means the project keeps evolving.

These objects [from the „Les moissons de la tristesse” exhibition] seem to come from many different places. They're not exclusively from Poland, are they?

A.P. No. Some of them are from Poland, but the collection is actually spread between Poland, France and, to a lesser extent, Germany. Most of the objects come from France and Poland. I found them in thrift stores, online marketplaces, or received them as gifts or through exchanges. Some pieces required a very long search. The cinema seats, for example–I had been looking for exactly the right ones for over a year before finally finding them. What interests me is that many of these objects already carry their own histories of displacement. They've travelled through different contexts, accumulated different meanings and cultural references, and continually changed their function.

The cinema seats are a good example. Originally, they belonged to an actual cinema that was eventually demolished. Afterwards they were purchased by a film set-design company and reused to build artificial cinemas for movie productions. Later I removed them from that cycle and placed them within an exhibition. I'm fascinated by these continuous circulations of objects, images and cultural signs.

There are so many layers to this exhibition that I honestly don't know where to begin. I'm not even sure whether it's better to unravel the mystery or leave it intact. Personally, I'd love to understand every reference, but I also wonder whether explaining everything would actually help the audience. Perhaps it wouldn't. Maybe viewers should simply be trusted–they're intelligent enough to find their own way through the exhibition. One thing that particularly caught my attention is the tension between fragility and permanence. There are these delicate fragments of nature–dead insects, organic remains–carefully attached to objects that seem almost indestructible. Could you tell me more about that?

A.P. There are several reasons behind it. First of all, this exhibition developed over a long period through a close collaboration with Oriana. Rather than thinking about individual artworks, we were interested in creating the exhibition as a complete fictional environment–with its own narrative, architecture and paratext. That's a freedom public institutions sometimes make possible. You can develop an exhibition as a whole instead of simply presenting a series of transportable objects, as you often would in a commercial gallery.

I've also been working with butterflies for quite some time. I'm interested in the tradition of still life and in how our perception of nature changes over time. The first butterflies I used several years ago belonged to species that feed on tears, sweat and even blood from mammals. In this exhibition, however, most of the specimens are local species.

When I first arrived in Gdańsk, one of the people I wanted to meet were amber collectors. Many of them are also storm hunters. To know when amber will wash ashore, they need an intimate understanding of winds, tides and storms. Of course they use weather forecasts and technology, but they also pay close attention to natural signs. One of those signs is the behaviour of nocturnal moths. When their flight suddenly becomes erratic, it's often considered an indication that a storm is approaching. In that sense, these insects become natural storm detectors. That's why moths appear repeatedly throughout the exhibition.

So they're mostly moths rather than butterflies?

A.P. Mostly moths, yes, although there are also butterflies. One of the moths, for example, was pinned to the small grey shelf on the first platform.

Right next to the dress.

A.P. Exactly.

The small object next to the dress also appears in the suitcase displayed in the other room. It's a radio receiver, isn't it?

A.P. Yes. The suitcase itself was originally designed to transport cash securely from one place to another, so the radio receiver functioned as part of its security system.

Every object seems to open up another story. Do these traces ultimately point towards something larger?

A.P. That's a difficult question because the answer always depends on the audience and on the context in which the work is shown. Here, the exhibition functions almost like a system of clues. Visitors can reconstruct their own narrative from the fragments they encounter.

It's closely related to cinematic language and to set design. Every object carries its own story, sometimes very elaborate, sometimes surprisingly simple. Occasionally those stories need explaining, but often they're simply formal constellations–assemblages whose meaning emerges through the relationships between their elements rather than through a fixed narrative.

Oriana, in your exhibition text you refer to what happens behind the scenes. Alexis has just mentioned cinema and set design. Is that how you see the exhibition as well?

O.R. It certainly can be read that way. From the very beginning we agreed that we weren't creating a collection of separate works but a single spatial proposition. Of course, we're still operating within the framework of an exhibition, but it can also be experienced almost like walking through a film set. Another important reference for me was the idea of liminal spaces–places that feel strangely empty or unsettling. They aren't necessarily frightening, but they make you question your surroundings and your own presence within them.

At the same time, we're still speaking the language of contemporary art, and we've deliberately left room for different interpretations. One possible reading focuses on emotional landscapes. Another returns to the figure of the storm whisperer–someone capable of influencing the weather. Throughout the research Alexis spent a great deal of time with amber collectors, studying storms, tides and atmospheric conditions. Those experiences became one of the exhibition's narrative threads. There isn't one correct interpretation. Some visitors respond emotionally to the atmosphere; others focus on aesthetics or treat the exhibition like a puzzle. One of the advantages of working in a public institution is that I can observe how people actually experience the exhibition. During guided tours–or even while simply walking through the galleries–I often overhear their conversations.

And what are they saying? I'm really curious.

O.R. One thing that surprised me was how many people became fascinated by the film. Visitors–and even colleagues–kept asking questions about it. They were drawn to its atmosphere and to the vintage objects appearing throughout the exhibition.

At the same time, I can also see people struggling. They enter the first room, pause, begin reading the wall text, then return to the objects, then back to the text again. They move constantly between looking and reading. That wasn't our intention–we weren't trying to make the exhibition deliberately difficult. We simply wanted to remain faithful to the concept while allowing different ways of experiencing it.

I have to disagree–you did make it difficult. But I actually think that's a good thing. After walking through the exhibition several times, I stopped trying to analyse everything intellectually. Instead, I decided to trust my instincts. It reminded me of the opening scene of David Lynch's Blue Velvet, where an ear is discovered lying in the grass. That's how I think visitors should approach this exhibition. Instead of finding an ear, they discover countless clues that continue unfolding long after they've left the gallery. What struck me most is that, although every object has clearly been placed with extraordinary precision, you're never forced into a single interpretation. You're allowed to experience the exhibition on your own terms. Let's move to another subject. Alexis, during your residency in Gdańsk one word kept appearing in your notes: insomnia. While reading about your stay I imagined someone drifting between sleep and wakefulness, watching films, falling asleep, waking again, constantly surrounded by new images. Were you actually suffering from insomnia? And what were your nights in Gdańsk like?

A.P. I wouldn't say I'm a chronic insomniac, but I do go through periods of insomnia. During my time in Gdańsk that definitely happened. I was living alone in a room overlooking the harbour for several weeks. After a while, the distinction between day and night simply disappeared. You end up going to bed at seven in the morning without even noticing. At night I often accompanied amber collectors. We used radio equipment to record storms at extremely low frequencies. I was also composing music while I was in Gdańsk. Although none of that music appears in the exhibition, working with sound changes your perception of time. Hours disappear without you realising it, and I think that way of working also influenced how I approached the objects themselves. Interestingly, we only introduced the film quite late in the development of the exhibition. It functions almost as a counterpoint to the sculptural installation. The film overwhelms you with images–you become the screen onto which they're projected. The sculptural works operate in the opposite way. They create empty spaces between objects, leaving room for viewers to project their own imagination.

For me, those empty spaces are just as important as the objects themselves.

Oriana, will the works be shipped back to Alexis?

O.R. Very soon, actually. Alexis is opening two shows in September and some of these works will be included there, so everything has to be carefully scheduled. The packing and shipping are already underway. Besides, Alexis comes to Poland at least once every year, so I'm sure we'll find another opportunity to work together.

Everyone should come to Poland once a year.

A.P. I have to. Otherwise it wouldn't feel like a complete year.

I have a slightly mischievous question. Has anyone tried to steal anything from the exhibition? I have to admit, I was tempted to take one of the stars...

O.R. I'm glad you asked. Actually, the butterflies have become part of an unintended process. You could say the exhibition keeps changing over time. Every few weeks we replace one of them. The butterfly you saw was already the second one.

We should give them names.

O.R. Oh, they already have names. I especially loved the first one. I only remember its Polish name, but it was wonderful.

A.P. We recently found another species whose Polish name includes the word posmutek or smutniak ("sad one"), which made us smile.

So what happened to the first butterfly?

O.R. Let's just say... it's no longer with us.

A.P. That's part of the exhibition's life, I suppose. There are actually a few works that visitors never get to see. They're still listed on the floor plan, almost like ghosts. One of them was the scent piece, and another was a pair of latex shoes installed in the lift.

I completely missed the shoes!

O.R. They had to be removed. During the installation we were constantly testing the limits of the exhibition space–where it begins, where it ends, and how architecture can become part of the work. We wanted the exhibition to spill beyond the gallery itself. Sometimes that approach is playful, sometimes it creates unexpected practical problems. There are, of course, things you simply can't do in a public institution, and occasionally you only discover those limits once the exhibition opens.

What was so problematic about the latex shoes?

O.R. They were simply too convincing but also posed a fire safety hazard, as nothing should be left in an elevator. People couldn't always tell whether they belonged to the exhibition or had been left behind by someone. That's exactly the kind of ambiguity we were interested in, but it also created practical concerns. What matters most to me, though, is not whether visitors decode every reference correctly. We can always explain the research, the symbols or the stories behind particular objects. But the emotional response–that moment when something resonates before it can be explained–is much more valuable. Everyone notices different traces. Everyone leaves with a different story.

You have no idea how many times I've read your curatorial text. I understood every sentence, but in the end I stopped trying to solve the exhibition intellectually. Instead, I found myself thinking about loss. About the sadness of losing something. And, at the same time, about the joy of unexpectedly finding something else. That's what stayed with me after leaving the exhibition. Thanks for talking!

A.P. Hopefully we'll meet again soon.

I'm sure we will.

Son ancrage dans la ville de Strasbourg, qui reste peu connectée au centre névralgique représenté par Paris, l’a conduit à explorer des scènes situées de plus en plus à l’Est. Après des séjours en Allemagne et au Luxembourg, c’est en Pologne qu’il réalise ses derniers projets, guidé par l’étude de phénomènes culturels, scientifiques et sociologiques découverts sur place. Aujourd’hui résident de l'atelier Artagon (Pantin) et intégré au post-diplôme de l'ENSBA de Lyon, il reste toutefois éloigné des parcours dits classiques et qui rendent compte d’une centralisation spécifique à la scène française. De cette géographie particulière est née une manière de penser les pièces en constellation qui consiste à imaginer pour chaque exposition une potentielle extension de celle-ci dans un autre espace, tangible ou non. Lorsqu’il réalise l’un de ses premiers projets entre le Kunstverein de Freiburg et la HEK de Bâle, il s’agit pour lui de rejouer le ciné-club au rez-de-chaussée de l’immeuble dans lequel il a passé son enfance. À cette occasion, il ouvre un site internet qui lui permettra, au fil des projets, d’inviter des artistes à présenter leurs vidéos dans le cadre de micro-programmations associées. Cette démarche visant à déconstruire la fracture entre espace digital et matériel s’actualise dans son ambition de concevoir des expositions jumelles. Qu’il rende possible la coexistence de deux pièces similaires dans deux environnements distincts ou qu’il envisage une exposition comme le prélude de la suivante, l’artiste s’applique à étendre la temporalité de l'œuvre à un processus en perpétuelle évolution. Tout comme le paradoxe des horloges – théorie physique tendant à démontrer la relativité des durées et également connue sous le nom de « paradoxe des jumeaux » –, son travail donne corps à cette dilatation du temps. Sa manière d’appréhender le dispositif curatorial comme une installation plus globale et de percevoir l’espace comme un continuum participe intimement de sa recherche artistique. Existant au-delà de tout cadre, les formes produites par Alexis Puget découlent des investigations qu’il mène et ressurgissent de manière itérative dans de nouveaux contextes narratifs.

Il y a quelques années, l’artiste archivait de manière spontanée les aléas d’une relation amoureuse entre deux protagonistes d’un live chat sur YouTube. Des débuts hasardeux de cette romance vécue virtuellement à sa rupture dramatique, il se fait le dactylographe des nombreux échanges qui ont eu lieu pendant plusieurs mois entre deux adolescent·es. Plus tard, ce dialogue à trous – l'instantanéité du chat n’ayant pas permis d’en saisir chaque détail – donne lieu au scénario d’un film qui ne sera jamais tourné par l’artiste. Se saisissant des codes de la série B romantique, il s’applique à en extraire des fragments pour en imaginer le décor, les accessoires, le trailer et les pochettes DVD ne contenant pas l’objet fini. Les différentes expositions qui en résultent, réunies sous le nom de « Sad Songs for Sad People » mettent en scène une production filmique irréelle qui se fait l’autopsie de nouveaux modes relationnels et questionne la redéfinition de nos systèmes affectifs à l’ère post-internet. À travers l’étude précise de différents signes culturels, dérivant le plus souvent d’Internet – de la résurgence du mouvement Emo aux crying selfies –, l’artiste use des tendances esthétiques émanant de flux virtuels pour sonder les mouvements du monde extérieur. Par cette veille digitale, il décrypte des comportements sociétaux qu’il vient traduire de manière poétique. Dans sa pratique sculpturale, il s’attache ainsi à établir des correspondances entre des phénomènes a priori sans lien de cause à effet et pourtant intimement corrélés.

Lors de sa première résidence à Gdańsk (Pologne), Alexis Puget part à la recherche de l’ambre jaune, matière semi-précieuse issue de gisements sous-marins et régulièrement rejetée sur la côte. Pour ce faire, il fait appel autant aux groupes trouvés sur Facebook réunissant des communautés de chercheur·euses amateur·es qu’aux savoirs ancestraux qui suggèrent de se fier aux bruits des vagues pour savoir quand l’ambre viendra à apparaître. En analysant notamment comment les réseaux sociaux fictionnalisent la réalité et de quelle manière la fiction imprègne en retour le réel, il vient révéler les conséquences de ces intrications par le prisme d’objets saisis tels quels ou reconfigurés. Pour autant, ses projets dérivent le plus souvent d’enquêtes qui n'aboutissent pas, de films qui ne voient pas le jour, de tempêtes qui n’éclatent jamais, de boucles vidéo et de playlists infinies. Tout comme ses pièces qui ne se figent jamais dans une forme parfaitement durable, l’enjeu de sa pratique semble résider dans la recherche en tant que telle. Il s’intéresse davantage aux chasseurs d’ambre et aux dompteurs de tempêtes qu’aux phénomènes en eux-mêmes. Énigmatique, le contenu produit par Alexis Puget se veut spéculatif et s’appuie sur des récits glanés au fil des rencontres ou dénichés dans les profondeurs de forums obscurs dont il se fait le conteur. Lorsqu’il s'intéresse à l’histoire du centre-ville médiéval de Gdańsk qui n’est autre qu’une reconstruction récente fabriquée de toutes pièces en prélevant les pierres de villages voisins, il laisse affleurer l’idée selon laquelle les meilleurs scénarios adviennent dans le réel. Cette matière devient pour lui un enjeu fictionnel qui apparaît de manière diffractée dans ses pièces pour offrir un mode de lecture sensible des contextes qu’il vient explorer et des implications politiques, historiques et anthropologiques qui s’y nouent.

Dans sa dernière exposition personnelle intitulée « Nocturnals » (Barbara Baryzewska gallery, Poznań, janvier-février 2026), en hommage à la fois aux espèces volantes qui émergent à la nuit tombée et à un genre souvent associé au romantisme musical, l’artiste convoque différentes références culturelles qui seront réinterprétées lors de deux nouveaux actes à Gdańsk (Laznia CCA, 2026) et à Nancy (Openspace, 2027). Largement inspiré par le concept de « superstorm» développé par la chercheuse en design Noemi Biasetton, qui use de métaphores atmosphériques pour étudier les implications politiques qui se jouent notamment dans le monde digital, l’artiste construit à son tour des corrélations entre les mouvements des papillons de nuit annonciateurs de tempêtes et la vidéo d’une mouche produite par une entreprise d'insecticides reprenant tout autant les codes du cinéma horrifique que ceux des films de propagande soviétique des années 1970. Dans cette exposition comme dans sa pratique en général, si les pièces d’Alexis Puget dénotent un caractère sentimental et nostalgique, leur agencement semble revêtir une dimension programmatique. Mis bout à bout, ces objets visant à décrypter des codes civilisationnels peuvent ainsi s'envisager de la même manière que l’artiste Hito Steyerl conçoit l’évolution des contenus visuels à l’ère numérique : « Les images n’enregistrent plus une réalité préexistante mais co-créent une réalité à venir. »

The project examines how social media users create and curate "aesthetic trends" that romanticize and fictionalize everyday life. These trends have grown significantly since the pandemic, serving as responses to social and emotional disruption. Users organize cultural references— music, cinema, photography, and literature—under hashtags including #midwestcore, #polishcore, #twilightcore, #liminalspaces, #cottagecore, #regionalemo. These digital movements create what Puget describes as "a sensitive library of poetic speculative tools."

Weather phenomena, especially storms and thunder, play a central role in these aesthetic movements, often accompanied by detailed atmospheric descriptions connected to specific emotions and feelings. Puget investigates how these natural forces operate within our current capitalist context while maintaining connections to historical tales and rituals.

His research draws particularly from Adam Mickiewicz's romantic poem "Dziady" (The Day of the Dead, 1823–1860), which develops a philosophical approach to death and nature using highly cinematic settings and atmospheres. Additionally, Puget references the figure of the storm tamer through Polish-French director Jean Epstein's film "Le Tempestaire."

Through radio archiving devices, Puget captures Very Low Frequencies (VLF), also known as "Natural Radio." This practice enables him to engage in "weather watching"—a form of hertzian field recording that transforms him into a "sound storm hunter," directly inserting himself into meteorological phenomena through audio documentation.