Anatomie du vivant / Life

Anatomie du Vivant presents the work of the artist Sophie Keraudren-Hartenberger, whose practice, at the crossroads of art, science and technology, plunges into the heart of matter. The artist shares a taste for scientific aesthetics and works to reveal the invisible threads that weave our world. The Life installation offers an evolving work that sensitively reinterprets a scientific experiment from the last century, while exploring the frontiers of life.

The artist unveils a new series created in collaboration with the CEISAM laboratory at the University of Nantes. Inspired by the work of Nantes doctor Stéphane Leduc, who, in 1905, attempted to recreate living things from chemical substances, she questions the blurred boundaries between the animate and the inanimate. Her “Nano” series consists of laboratory glassware sculptures in which she shapes “chemical gardens”. These artificial organic formations, resulting from the mixture of saline solutions and minerals, evoke the genesis of the first forms of life on Earth. The growth of these gardens, which she films and projects onto the sculptures, acts as a reminiscence of the first signs of life that appeared on our planet.

The installation immerses the viewer in a world that is both disturbing and fascinating, constantly oscillating between the infinitely small and the infinitely large. A dive into darkness, where only a few ultraviolet lights, echoing bioluminescence, guide our perceptions. An immersive and sensory work where art and science meet to reveal the complexity of life.