{"id":32466,"date":"2026-06-05T09:47:34","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T07:47:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chroniques-biennale.org\/oeuvre\/marmalade\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T18:32:59","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T16:32:59","slug":"marmalade","status":"publish","type":"oeuvre","link":"https:\/\/chroniques-biennale.org\/en\/oeuvre\/marmalade\/","title":{"rendered":"Marmalade"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Paolo Almario CO \/ QC \/ CA<\/sup>
Marmelade<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Interactive installation <\/strong><\/h5>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Exhibition :<\/strong> \u201cDisobedience in the Digital Age\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

From October 23 to December 13, 2026<\/strong>
From Wednesday to Sunday, 2pm to 7pm<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friche la Belle de Mai<\/strong>
La Tour, 4th floor
Marseille<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Credits<\/summary>\n

Production: Paolo Almario Co-production: CHRONIQUES, Stereolux, Ubchihica With support from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Qu\u00e9bec (CALQ) and the Canada Council for the Arts<\/p>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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“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, \u201cmarmalade\u201d 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The work is a continuation of the series -form\u00e9 (2013\u20132016), an artistic and activist movement born out of the impact of the Colombian conflict on the artist\u2019s family. Paolo Almario\u2019s father spent more than nine years in prison. The portraits from Marmelade\u2019s 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 \u201ccartel de la toga\u201d 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In May 2023, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) filed new charges against the artist\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the 2026 Biennale des Imaginaires Num\u00e9riques, the artist is creating new portraits in direct response to these events. \u201cMarmelade\u201d 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Paolo Almario<\/h2>\n
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An artist of Colombian origin who has been based in Chicoutimi (Quebec, Canada) since 2011, Paolo Almario has developed a transdisciplinary practice in which digital technologies, robotic systems, and social critique explore the spatiality of being: the dynamic relationship between the individual and the spaces they inhabit, whether physical or metaphorical. A graduate of the Faculty of Architecture and Design at the Universidad de los Andes (Bogot\u00e1, Colombia), he refined his approach through a Master of Arts degree (2014) at the Universit\u00e9 du Qu\u00e9bec \u00e0 Chicoutimi (UQAC), where he now teaches in the Department of Arts, Letters, and Language. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":32468,"menu_order":0,"template":"","edition":[140],"type_oeuvre":[28,95],"class_list":["post-32466","oeuvre","type-oeuvre","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chroniques-biennale.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/oeuvre\/32466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chroniques-biennale.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/oeuvre"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chroniques-biennale.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/oeuvre"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chroniques-biennale.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chroniques-biennale.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chroniques-biennale.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/edition?post=32466"},{"taxonomy":"type_oeuvre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chroniques-biennale.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type_oeuvre?post=32466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}