Floryan Varennes : Matriphagy
Performance followed by a talk with Lauriane Gricourt, director of Les Abattoirs
An extension of his installation in the exhibition Assemblages. Take Care Of Things, artist Floryan Varennes' performance Matriphagy will be presented at Les Abattoirs for one evening.
Matriphagy invites the audience into a waiting space. Operators dressed in white move around barefoot, performing slow, precise, almost hypnotic gestures—as if they were manipulating invisible devices or trying to console a world in limbo. Inspired by speculative fiction, the performance shifts care regimes into an uncertain zone. A sense of unease sets in: are these gestures guided by control, repair, or some form of extreme diagnosis? Their repetition creates an atmosphere of vigilance, where each movement seems charged with restrained intensity. The soundtrack Solace envelops the space: a mixture of cicadas, monitoring, and human cries, which instills a nervous, almost instinctive listening.
In the shadow of the symbolic disappearance of the haenyeo, the Korean female divers, the performance Matriphagy imagines a possible legacy: care that devours in order to better connect, a speculative gesture that is as disturbing as it is soothing. A physical and sensitive experience, where the viewer is invited to feel before understanding—and to inhabit this moment when care becomes a predatory, almost indomitable force.
This performance is a continuation of “Protocol Nexus,” a healing protocol* from the work L'Assemblée, currently presented in the exhibition "Assemblages. Taking Care of Things" (September 26, 2025-September 27, 2026).
This protocol, whose gestures are performed by Floryan Varennes, will take place from January 19 to 23 at Les Abattoirs, in the exhibition rooms, under the eyes of visitors.
*A curative protocol refers to all restoration and conservation actions applied to a work or heritage object after it has suffered alteration or damage. Unlike the preventive protocol, which aims to prevent deterioration (climate control, handling, storage), the curative protocol intervenes once the problem has been identified.
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For more than 10 years, Floryan Varennes has been developing a body of work involving sculpture, installation, and simulation that reconfigures the structures of preservation and regulation that run through our bodies. Between archives and anticipations, his research examines the processes of interdependence, predation, and repair that shape our relationship to life, technology, and history.
Through these combinations, Floryan Varennes, with his referential approach, heals a present in crisis, while sketching out an alternative temporality made up of attentions, impacts, and premonitions.
Born in 1988 in La Rochelle, Floryan Varennes lives and works between Nantes and Paris. He holds a DNSEP from ESAD TPM (2014) and a Master's degree in Medieval History from Paris-Nanterre University (2020). He has exhibited internationally (NADA New York, Hongti Art Center in South Korea, Galerie du Monde in Hong Kong, Galerie Polansky in Prague) as well as in France (Musée du Louvre-Lens, MAGCP, Salon de Montrouge). He has been welcomed in residence by Villa Busan – Institut Français (KR), Est-Nord-Est (CA), the Synagogue de Delme (FR), and La Ferme-Asile (CH). Since 2020, his work has been included in the national collections of FRAC Occitanie, Alsace, Poitou-Charentes, as well as those of the Goeun Museum in Busan and the Sunpride Foundation in Hong Kong.
https://www.floryanvarennes.com/