memento vivere / opus 02

Jul 18, 2026 | editions en, local contemporain en

The Grenoble Museum is hosting and organizing—in collaboration with the laboratory linked to the University Hospital’s “Health Humanities” Chair and the Cresson_AAU research unit (CNRS, ENSAG-UGA)—a new series of conversations exploring the place of the dead within the world of the living. These dialogues bring together contemporary artists whose work reinterprets our mortal condition; healthcare professionals and practitioners who confront death and end-of-life care on a daily basis; anthropologists, philosophers, and biologists; and the general public.

It may seem paradoxical to speak of new ways of imagining death, given that it has haunted humanity since time immemorial. Yet, while the fundamental nature of the enigma remains unchanged, certain signs reveal how our representations and practices are evolving. This shift is driven by a more nuanced understanding of biological processes, as well as by the global acceleration of social change and ecosystemic instability—manifesting in everything from social media memorials dedicated to the deceased and makeshift roadside shrines to rituals adopted from other cultures or gestures that break free from established traditions.

How can we translate and share these new imaginaries within the public sphere? The presence of those who have passed away forms our matrix—our nourishing soil, that *humus* which shares its etymological roots with the words “humility” and “humanity.” No civilization could exist without this porous exchange of ideas and images passed down from one generation to the next. That is why we will engage in dialogue with authors and artists creating new forms and narratives, while also examining works from the Grenoble Museum’s collections; for the “new” is often unstable, and may well turn out to have been present all along.

The guests:

  • Pascal Convert, Visual artist, writer, filmmaker
  • Aurélia Zahedi, Visual artist
  • Sophie Zenon, Visual artist, historian, and sociologist
  • Maryvonne Arnaud, Photographer, visual artist
  • Eliane Umuhire, Artist
  • Jérémy Damian, Dancer, anthropologist
  • Laurence Loutre Barbier, Photographer, publisher at Fage Éditions, head of the alternative funeral service “Noir Clair”
  • Pierre Reboul, Writer, member of the Grenoble-based collective “Morts de rue et personnes isolées” (Street Deaths and Isolated Individuals)
  • Anne Carol, Historian of medicine and the body
  • Martin Julier-Costes, Socio-anthropologist
  • Cherry Schrecker, Sociologist
  • Marc Higgin, Anthropologist
  • Hélène Chaudeau, Independent funeral consultant
  • Heddi Bouti, Geriatrician
  • Abdel Ouacheria, Biologist and philosopher,

The moderators:

  • Julia Champey, Anesthesiologist-intensivist, head of the Grenoble branch of the Medical Humanities Chair (Psychiatry-Neurosciences GHU / Sorbonne), directed by Cynthia Fleury
  • Pascaline Thiollière, Architect, researcher specializing in urban planning and spaces of coexistence with the dead
  • Pauline Bouchet, Associate Professor at UGA (Grenoble), director of the Arts-Health program
  • Philippe Mouillon, Visual artist, exhibition curator, initiator of “Memento Vivere”

Since autumn 2025, the first two contemporary works produced as part of *memento vivere* have been on display at the Petit-Sablon cemetery in La Tronche, near the communal burial section. Artists participating in this November 2026 edition will be invited to conceive new works.

memento vivere is a series produced by Le LABORATOIRE with the support of the City of Grenoble, the City of La Tronche, the Isère Department, UGA, LabEx Architectures, and Cresson.

memento vivere

Jun 18, 2024 | Laboratoire en

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Memento vivere is a prospective research project that blends contemporary creation and social science research. It continues our previous work on the living and vitalities, from a new perspective. For art remains a powerful tool for reframing our lives, situating them in their proper context within the long-term course of humanization and the great cycle of life.

In particular, it can help us recognize how much past generations compose our matrix, how we still lead our lives accompanied by their words and with their tools. This is how they socialize and humanize us. This is a perennial social function, that is, one that is active in the world of the living. No civilization would exist without this transmission of words and knowledge, symbols and tools. There is nothing necrophiliac in this research, but rather, in the era of the Anthropocene and the collapse of ecosystem balances, the desire to question and reframe our lives, to situate them in their proper context within the long-term course of humanization and the tangled dynamics of life

  • Two contemporary works will be open to the public in November 2025 at the Petit Sablon cemetery in the commune of La Tronche : Les Présences by Philippe Mouillon, and La Moire by Mathilde and Nicolas Beguin.
  • Then a series of encounters will take place at the Grenoble museum on Saturday, November 8, 2025, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.:
> Conversations: at the Grenoble Museum

The LABORATOIRE and the Grenoble Museum are offering a series of conversations on Saturday, November 8, about the place of the dead in the world of the living. These conversations will involve authors and artists whose work questions our mortal condition, practitioners who are confronted daily with death or its accompaniment, and the public:

  • Julia Champey, anesthesiologist and intensive care physician, head of the Grenoble branch of the Medical Humanities Chair at the GHU Psychiatry – Neurosciences / Sorbonne, directed by Cynthia Fleury
  • Rachid Koraichi, visual artist, author of Jardin d’Afrique in Zarzis, Tunisia, a cemetery intended to house the anonymous bodies of migrants who died at sea
  • Pierre Reboul, writer, author of Haiku from the Threshold of Death and Petites chroniques d’un carré commun, member of the collective Morts de rue et personnesisolers de Grenoble to accompany the funerals in the Carré commun of the homeless and Disaffiliated
  • Jehanne Roul, lecturer in medieval history at UCO Angers. Her research focuses on beings and their remains—such as relics or the dead on the battlefield.
  • Raphaëlle Guidée, professor of comparative literature at the University of Paris 8, works on mourning, memory, and mass violence, and is the author of The City After. Detroit, a narrative investigation and The Apocalypse, a political imagination
  • Daniel Bougnoux, philosopher, is currently exploring forms of life
  • Pascaline Thiolliere, architect, researcher on spaces of coexistence with the dead and the spatiality of mourning, at the Cresson laboratory, ENSA Grenoble-UGA
  • Jacques Grison, photographer, author of a long-term research project on the landscapes of the Verdun battlefields
  • Arnaud Petit, performer, composer, and conductor, author of operas, oratorios, and works combining music and narrative, including Memories, about the presence of the missing
  • Mathilde Béguin, visual architect, and Nicolas Béguin, cabinetmaker designer, authors of La Moire
  • Philippe Mouillon, visual artist, creator of Memento vivere, and author of Légende(s), composed with Maryvonne Arnaud in Sarajevo besieged

The Grenoble Museum thus revives a long tradition of art history, to which its collections bear witness, from Egyptian antiquities to the present day.

With the support of the Ministry of Culture (Drac Auvergne Rhône-Alpes), the Auvergne Rhône-Alpes region – within the framework of the 21st Century Memories calls for projects, the Department of Isère, the City of La Tronche and the city and Museum of Grenoble.

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