Vidéo from Marielle Chabal
Participation and performance : Juliette Séjourné
Palais de Tokyo (2019), Centre Pompidou (2023)
Video/photo credit Simon Bonanni
Al Qamar Al Qamar (2019) revolves around a fictional account of the construction of an ultra-libertarian city by the Halmens, a community of feminist hackers. The Halmens are behind a series of computer attacks targeting the international monetary system, leading to the collapse of the capitalist system in 2024. A time of renewal and experimentation with societal models, which Marielle Chabal calls the "RESET", is thus made possible. The city of Al Qamar, which takes its name from the 54th Sura of the Koran ("the hour draws near and the moon is split"), was born in Palestine.
Marielle Chabal's work is based on a transdisciplinary, collaborative approach: for Al Qamar, she invited around a hundred artists, urban planners, architects and actors from the art world to work with her to construct the fiction.
Al Qamar Al Qamar was born of the need to rethink the foundations of our social life, and is the site of a utopia. Founded on feminist values and a rejection of the old capitalist system, it promises the possibility of rebirth. Erected on a former Israeli settlement on the outskirts of Jericho, it nonetheless seems to come up against its own limits
