ISHØJ.- In the immersive exhibition Torches, French artist Marguerite Humeau creates a richly affective opera that spans across time and space, asking questions about our shared origins and alternative futures. Sound and light bring Humeau’s sculptures and installations to life, weaving a complex and evocative narrative. Her works incorporate many unconventional materials, including beeswax, wasp venom, yeast and cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae.

On 22 May, ARKEN opened the exhibition Torches, where the internationally acclaimed French artist Marguerite Humeau (b.1986) invites us to rethink our past, present and future here on Earth – and guides us through the darkness with her art. Conceived as an opera, the exhibition presents the artworks in an array of interlinked acts, using sound and light as mainstays of the other-worldly narratives that have won Marguerite Humeau international acclaim. She is also known for incorporating unusual materials in her art, with examples including hand-blown glass, waxed felt, laser-cut steel, silk, and even yeast. The exhibition at ARKEN also presents a work featuring an ecosystem of cyanobacteria that will continue to multiply during the exhibition run.

Curator Sarah Fredholm explains the exhibition title, Torches, by pointing out that ‘the works, embodying characters, are like torches in the dark. They point towards new connections between all living things across time and place and show us the way ahead,’ she says and continues:

‘Even though the point of departure of Marguerite Humeau’s work is our crisis-stricken planet, there is still hope to be found. Her art shows us that we can still find fresh starts and new beginnings; all we need to do is to imagine other ways of existing, ways that are more closely attuned to the rich variety of the rest of life on Earth.’

Marguerite Humeau’s works ask thought-provoking questions: What if elephants had become the dominant species on Earth? What would the world look like if we co-operated like ants or bees? Or if life could only be sustained high up in the atmosphere? Torches shows us new perspectives to marvel at and possibly learn from.

Says curator Sarah Fredholm: ‘With her art, Marguerite Humeau offers up alternative narratives about possible ways of co-existing here on Earth; ways where humankind does not take centre stage and where the boundaries between lifeforms, time and place are fluid and open to renegotiation.’

For the first time ever, Torches brings together all-new and earlier works by Marguerite Humeau. It is also the artist’s first solo show in Scandinavia. Furthermore, Torches constitutes the third and final part of ARKEN’s exhibition series NATURE FUTURE, in which prominent figures on the international art scene focus on humanity’s relationship with art, nature and technology. The previous instalments in the series were Refik Anadol’s Nature Dreams (2023) and Julian Charrière’s Solarstalgia (2024–25).

The exhibition Torches is on at ARKEN from 22 May to 19 October 2025. It is presented in co-operation with the Helsinki Art Museum (HAM), where it will subsequently be shown.

Marguerite Humeau was born in 1986 in Cholet, France, and lives and works in London. She holds an MA (2011) from The Royal College of Art, London. Her past exhibitions include solo shows at ICA Miami (2024), Lafayette Anticipations, Paris (2021), Kunstverein Hamburg (2019), Museion, Bolzano (2019), New Museum, New York (2018), Tate Britain, London (2017), and Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2016).