The Journey to Nantes explores planet Earth

This year, “La Terre” forms the base of the route, punctuated by the works of the nine invited artists. Headliners of this edition, Ali Cherri, Théo Mercier and Pierrick Sorin – who is also a local figure – create works in situ. Barbara Schroeder, Edgar Sarin and Dominique Petitgand benefit from solid institutional recognition; the work of Anne-Charlotte Finel, Louis Guillaume or Caroline Le Méhauté, while well identified on the contemporary art scene, constitutes more of a discovery. Origin and finitude, map and territory, matrix of life…: the imagination linked to the Earth is rich and opens up to a plurality of readings – sensitive, symbolic, ecological, political… This is one of the qualities of this journey that is also complemented by “Interstellar”, a group exhibition in the Hab Galerie space, designed by curator Marc Donnadieu.

We can thus begin at Place Félix-Fournier where, inspired by an early text by Jules Verne in which the writer describes the collapse of a bell transformed into a cannonball, Ali Cherri (born in 1976) designed an installation between ruins and monument – ​​at the same time, the Dobrée Museum mansion is hosting an exhibition dedicated to his work. We then descend into the crypts of the cathedral to watch a set of videos by Anne-Charlotte Finel (born in 1986), notably Atlantic (2026), a film around Harris’s hawks (a kind of bird of prey) produced for the event. We pass by the emblematic sites of the Journey, such as the Place Graslin, on the scale of which Théo Mercier (born in 1984) creates a vast sculpture in sand, which has become his favorite material, and we are surprised along the way by the Extraordinary Garden, which notably hosts the sculptures of Barbara Schroeder (born in 1965), or the chapel of the Lycée Clemenceau, usually closed to the public, where Edgar’s project takes place Sarin (born 1989).