Paolo Almario CO / QC / CA
Marmelade

Interactive installation

Exhibition : “Disobedience in the Digital Age”

From October 23 to December 13, 2026
From Wednesday to Sunday, 2pm to 7pm

Friche la Belle de Mai
, La Tour, 4th floor
, Marseille

Credits

Production: Paolo Almario Co-production: CHRONIQUES, Stereolux, Ubchihica With support from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ) and the Canada Council for the Arts

“Marmelade” is a self-destructive, participatory installation in which the audience sits around tables set with bread and Colombian jam while robotic machines systematically destroy, photo by photo, portraits of judicial figures involved in acts of political persecution. In Colombia, “marmalade” is a metaphor for the corrupt distribution of political power: power is seized by certain individuals who distribute it unevenly. The installation embodies this metaphor by inviting the audience to eat jam while witnessing the destruction of the portraits of those who embody this corruption.

The work is a continuation of the series -formé (2013–2016), an artistic and activist movement born out of the impact of the Colombian conflict on the artist’s family. Paolo Almario’s father spent more than nine years in prison. The portraits from Marmelade’s previous exhibitions depict the justices of the Colombian Supreme Court who authorized his arrest in 2012. At least three of them have since been prosecuted and convicted of corruption in connection with the so-called “cartel de la toga” scandal. The work has taken on a prophetic dimension: the faces destroyed by the machine are those of judges who have themselves been put on trial.

In May 2023, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) filed new charges against the artist’s father for persecution as a crime against humanity, alleging a conspiracy with the FARC, the organization that had attempted to assassinate him on several occasions. In April 2026, the JEP confirmed that he would stand trial. The system that fabricated the previous charges was found to be corrupt, and those responsible were convicted; yet proceedings based on those very same foundations continue. He could potentially face another twenty years in prison.

For the 2026 Biennale des Imaginaires Numériques, the artist is creating new portraits in direct response to these events. “Marmelade” is presented in its most ambitious configuration to date: seven portraits of JEP magistrates and prosecutors, seven robotic machines, for a three-month exhibition at La Friche Belle de Mai in Marseille. By publicly deconstructing these faces, the artist transforms the weight of exile and the persistence of injustice into an act of symbolic redistribution of power.

Each portrait is a photomosaic composed of 4,800 microphotographs of Colombian jam labels, pinned to laser-microperforated Plexiglas panels. Robotic machines methodically destroy these portraits one photograph at a time, at a speed calibrated to ensure that material remains visible throughout the exhibition. The debris from the ejected microphotographs litters the floor and the table, becoming an integral part of the artwork.