Curriculum Vitae / Informations

Born in 1988, Thomas Teurlai studied at the Villa Arson in Nice. He was also in residence at the Pavillon, the creative laboratory at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Somewhere between the archaeology of the future and the aesthetics of do-it-yourself, Thomas Teurlai works in a salvaged mode, reinvesting used objects and giving them a second life, sometimes in the form of ritual practices. In this way, industry meets alchemy, and the objects become part of a kind of animism. Providenzad 2120 is the result of his collaboration with science fiction writer Alain Damasio, during the Providenza residency in Pieve in summer 2020. The work reinvents the cinematic device by using a motorbike helmet whose visor serves as a projection surface. Set against a text that projects the viewer into a Mad Max-style world, the work is emblematic of the artist’s work, while taking as its context a futuristic Corsica with the smell of burning tyres. This acquisition underlines the shift in the FRAC collection’s landscape theme towards the issues of the Anthropocene, while also highlighting the dynamics of artistic production in the region, since the work was produced in the context of a Fabrica culturale.

For the Fossile Murmure exhibition at La Station, Thomas Teurlai is presenting a new version of his work Râle 21.

Like a breathing aid, an electric motor drives the wheel of a car at the end of its life, as if abandoned there. The movement in turn drives the various gears in the motor. So there’s no explosion to propel this racing car, just the breath captured at the piston outlet by micro-contacts. The re-amplified rattle plays the lecherous swan song of an erotico-fossil society at the end of its tether.

The exhibition will also feature the work Providenzad 2120, the fruit of Thomas Teurlai’s collaboration with science fiction writer Alain Damasio during the Providenza residency in Pieve in summer 2020. The work reinvents the cinematic device by using a motorbike helmet whose visor serves as a projection surface. Set against a text that projects the viewer into a Mad Max-style universe, the work is emblematic of the artist’s work, while taking as its context a futuristic Corsica with the smell of burning tyres.