Peupler / Populate

Mouawad + Laurier · 2022 – 2025 · Venice Biennale, Dakar Biennale, Boulogne

Our role Concept, scenography, building the room, generative visuals, tracking, sound, real-time software, touring.

“Every living entity belongs to a people, and populate the earth in its own way.”

How can every living being, human and non-human, share the same territories? Peupler lets us see and feel the point of view of a tree watching our cities, a witness of the ecological changes it hopes for.

An immersive room made entirely of real-time generative content. The image adapts to the data it receives and to the presence of visitors, whose bodies are tracked live. Spatialised music and scent extend the image and bind the body to nature.

We designed the work end to end: the concept and scenography, the generative engine, body tracking, spatialised music and the on-site installation. For the Venice Film Festival, we built the immersive, interactive and olfactory room ourselves on the island of Lazzaretto Vecchio, with no media server: everything runs on our own software. The installation was set up by a team from our network brought together from Paris, Madrid and Venice. For the Dakar Biennale, we made a smaller, portable version that travels in three suitcases with a single artist-technician and runs on an ordinary laptop, ready to be set up in a biennale or a festival.

Official selection of the 2023 Venice Biennale (Venice Immersive)

Jury selection at the 2024 Dakar Biennale of Contemporary Art, and permanently installed at BNP Paribas Real Estate in Boulogne.

To programme this artwork: mouawadlaurier.com

Credits

Artists Mouawad + Laurier
Music Cyril Laurier, Louis Raveton
Creative coding Ben Kuper, Maya Benaïnous, Clément Gamgie Rignault, Joan Sandoval
Production Benoît Baume, Gaëtan Cerrillo, Fisheye, BNP Paribas Real Estate
Tree fabrication UltraLab
Photos Marie Flament

Tour

Dakar Biennale, jury selection, portable version, 2024
Venice Biennale, Venice Immersive, official selection, Lazzaretto Vecchio island, 2023
BNP Paribas Real Estate, Boulogne, permanent installation, since 2022

Press

“Peupler (Populate) by Maya Mouawad and Cyril Laurier completes the French presence in competition.” CNC, 2023
“Interactive projection-mapped installation Populate poetically explores the human-nature dialectic.” Kent Bye, Voices of VR, episode 1280, 2023