VANITAS OR A CONCEPT OF DUST
A durational performance in five acts that serves as a contemporary meditation on the classical Vanitas theme.
At its core, however, it is not a morbid fixation on mortality but a poetic celebration of transition—of that fleeting moment where things are no longer what they were, but not yet what they will become. It explores the intrinsic beauty of this liminal state, the pure potential that resides in absence.
The central idea revolves around a paradox: that a thing, in any given moment, is itself, and simultaneously is not, while it is also already becoming something else.
It is an archeology of the present. The performance itself is a living organism in constant flux, where dust is not merely residue but the true protagonist: it is the memory of matter, the physical trace of what has occurred, and the seed of what might happen next. The performers do not portray characters but embody processes—dissipation, erosion, recomposition. Their bodies, coated in luminous powders, trace visible arcs of energy in the air.
Sculptures of plaster, casts of everyday objects, slowly crumble, returning form to the dust from which it came.
A soundscape of fragmented voices and resonances creates an ecosystem of sonic ghosts. Altogether, the work invites the audience into a contemplative experience, to pause and observe the quiet, constant, and magnificent dissolution that underlies all things, and to find within it not a sense of loss, but one of infinite, silent potential.
Performance installation in 5 acts
Une réflexion sur l’éphémère
Une célébration de l’absence
Où une chose est et, dans le même temps, n’est pas encore, tout en étant aussi autre chose
Videos Caio Jacques
Photos Margot Lavigne