MARSEILLE.- In 2025, the Museums of Marseille invite the artist Laure Prouvost. For the chapel of the Centre de la Vieille Charité, the artist designs a unique monumental installation, inspired by the architecture of the place and the voices of its past and present inhabitants. In response, the [mac] Museum of Contemporary Art in Marseille presents “They Parlaient Idéale”, created for the 2019 Venice Biennale, to offer another reflection of Laure Prouvost’s artistic explorations.

The Museums of Marseille continue their tradition of inviting internationally renowned contemporary artists to create new works for the chapel of the Centre de la Vieille Charité. This historic site, with its unique architecture, hosts innovative projects each year in dialogue with its past and spirit. Following Ghada Amer (2023), Paola Pivi (2021), and Erwin Wurm (2019), 2025 marks a new milestone with Laure Prouvost, whose creation resonates deeply within this exceptional setting.

Laure Prouvost captures the very soul of the chapel to unfold a monumental visual and sound installation. Conceived as a maternal and fertile figure, her poetic work draws inspiration from the architecture of the space and the history of the generations that inhabited it, from centuries past to the residents of the Panier district today. Her dreamlike and immersive installation invites a reconnection with forgotten memories while celebrating the diversity of Marseille’s stories, in partnership with École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and the Conservatoire of Marseille. Drawing from underwated influences, she envelops the space in aquatic reflections. In this way, the work becomes a living tribute to collective memory, a link between the past, present and intimate narratives, a sensitive evocation of individual and collective histories, often overlooked. This project aligns with the City of Marseille’s commitment to actively support contemporary creation, involve the people of Marseille in the artistic dynamic, and valorize local heritage by reinventing it.

On the occasion of the European Night of Museums, the [mac] Museum of Contemporary Art in Marseille presents in the [mac]room the filmic and fictional work “They Parlaient Idéale”, the central film of the installation conceived in 2019 for the French Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. The film takes the form of an initiatory journey, a joyful adventure filmed during a road trip across France, from the Parisian suburbs to northern France, from the Palais du Facteur Cheval to the Calanques of Marseille, ultimately arriving in Venice.

Born in 1978 in Croix, near Lille, Laure Prouvost is an internationally renowned French contemporary artist. Trained at Central Saint Martins and Goldsmiths College in London, she lives and works between Antwerp, London and Brussels. Her work explores immersive environments where reality and fiction intertwine. Video, sculpture, painting, tapestry and performance form her poetic, quirky, and whimsical universe.

Winner of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women in 2011, she became, in 2013, the first French artist to receive the prestigious Turner Prize. In 2019, she represented France at the 58th Venice Biennale with her installations “Deep Blue Surrounding You / Vois Ce Bleu Profond Te Fondre”. She had numerous solo exhibitions internationally, and her works are regularly presented in prestigious institutions such as the Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen, the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, and Tate Britain in London.