Published as commentary on new acquisitions of the FRAC Grand Large collection, Dunkerque, 2026.
Marie Ouazzani studied at Villa Arson in Nice and the École Nationale Supérieure d’Art in Paris. Nicolas Carrier graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure d’Art in Paris and completed the UFR Cinema program at Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris. The artist duo began collaborating in 2015. Their solo exhibitions include La Galerie, centre d’art contemporain de Noisy-le-Sec (2023), among others. They have participated in international group exhibitions, including the Centre Pompidou, Paris (2022) and the 2nd Lagos Biennial (2019).
Marie Ouazzani and Nicolas Carrier research the distinctive, often unnoticed role of botanical organisms in urban and industrial environments. Beyond tracing the wide networks of their global distribution, the artists make plants the central protagonists of their emphatic fictions.
The four-part video series Extra Tropical, filmed in port cities across Europe, places a tropical plant within each harbour setting. In the Arecaceae video, the camera pans from within the crown of a palm species over the industrial grounds of the port of Brest. The frame is dominated by palm leaves—moved by climatic forces, drifting in and out of focus. At the centre of the image, superimposed text recounts the long and ambivalent history of palm trees as both exotic ornament and as a raw material for Brittany’s food industry. A soundscape derived from port activity, organised around repetitive mechanical rhythms, accompanies this narrative, cutting through the deep botanical time entangled with the industrial age.
While large-scale palm-oil plantations drive rainforest destruction in tropical regions, the palm trees at the port of Brest evoke Europe’s prehistoric Eocene past. With global warming, colder regions may once again assume tropical characteristics, as they did millions of years ago. Although Extra Tropical (Arecaceae) is directed by a human artist duo, plants and climatic forces appear to drive the plot.
Work
Extra tropical (arecaceae), 2020
HD video, single channel with audio, 6 mins
Loop presentation on monitor or projection
Selected Bibliography
Emprunt lointain, Marie Ouazzani & Nicolas Carrier, L’Isle-Adam : Musée d’art et d’histoire Louis Senlecq, 2023