“Run away or face up to it? Art and resilience at university”

With Marie Guillemin, member of the Fetart collective and co-artistic director of the Circulation(s) festival in Paris, Hugo Sinatora, cultural projects manager in the art & culture department, and artist Mathis Benestebe.

To conclude the exhibition La peine (The Pain) by Mathis Benestebe, artist photographer in residence at UM since September 2024, we invite you to attend an exceptional round table discussion.

In a world that is both bewildering and worrying, between political crises, violence, and eco-anxiety, artist Mathis Benestebe explores the temptation to escape: to build a space suit to remove oneself from reality, to isolate oneself, to survive in a different way. Through his project La peine, he uses absurdity to portray the desire to find a way out, even if it is impossible. It is a subtle way of making us understand that a collective response would be more beneficial to us. This work is part of the cultural activities carried out by the University of Montpellier, which is committed to opening up creative spaces to the community. Artist residencies also become opportunities for encounters that allow everyone to explore other ways of looking at the world and the crises we are going through.