© Véronique Joumard
Through a Glass, Darkly
6 June 2026 at Ygrec-ENSAPC art Centre
6pm – 11pm
Group show and performances program, as part of Nuit Blanche 2026 with Love as the overall theme. (Artistic Director: Barbara Butch)
With: Pauline Alves Da Silva, Mandana Behdad, Bergerolle Aymeric, Nicole Caoduro, Rocco Dumont, Yolanda Geslin, Jiangyue Guo, Motong Huang, Hyeongyo Kim, Anastasiia Melnyk, Andreas Mockenhaupt, Pablo Moraga, Corentin Mornet, Luzie Münzer, Cécile Normand, Camilla Prey, Katja Rausch, Noa Robin, Marei Schleussinger, Evgenia Shepeleva, René Stiegler, Luis Strobl, Pauline Stroux, Felix Spirglas, Junjie Tu, Marie Vautrin, Jiri Willemen.
Teachers supervision: Andrea Bütter, Thierry Boissel, Sophia Mainka, Maria Mulhe, Véronique Joumard and Judith Perron.
On the occasion of Nuit Blanche 2026, Ygrec Art Center presents Through a Glass, Darkly, a collective exhibition emerging from an artistic research project developed jointly by ENSAPC (École nationale supérieure d’arts de Paris-Cergy) and the Akademie der Bildenden Künste München.
Conceived as a site of experimentation and critical inquiry, the project approaches glass as a sensitive and unstable material — at times transparent and reflective, at others opaque or matte — suspended between memory and illusion, visibility and disappearance. Both fragile and sharp, glass becomes a medium through which sculpture, installation, image, and light intersect.
Since November 2025, around twenty French and German students have participated in workshops, collaborative research, and shared artistic practices between Munich and Paris, generating a dialogue grounded both in glassmaking techniques and in the circulation of contemporary references, experiences, and forms of collective production.
At the core of the project lies an immersion into Bavaria’s exceptional glassmaking traditions, including hand-blown glass, stained glass painting, and mosaic practices. These encounters opened new possibilities for sculptural, painterly, and spatial experimentation. Through workshops, seminars, and visits to key sites of art, architecture, and glass heritage, participants developed an approach to glass that is simultaneously material, conceptual, and performative.
The exhibition at Ygrec brings together a selection of works produced throughout this year-long collaborative research process. Each proposal reflects a dialogue between artisanal knowledge, contemporary artistic experimentation, and an exploration of transparency, density, and the capacity of glass to transform light into a language of its own.
The evening will also feature performances, sculptures, and paintings on view from 6pm to 11pm. Through a Glass, Darkly invites audiences to encounter the work of two European art schools brought together around a shared question: how might vision itself be unsettled?
