Marine Hugonnier's Trilogy Explores Landscape, Power, and Cinema

French artist Marine Hugonnier, based in London, is the subject of a series of solo exhibitions at prestigious institutions including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, S.M.A.K. in Ghent, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin, Kunsthalle Bern, and MAMCO in Geneva. These shows present her works from the past five years, centered on a trilogy of films—Ariana (2003), The Last Tour (2004), and Travelling Amazonia (2006)—that increasingly engage with political themes. Hugonnier also participates in the 52nd Venice Biennale. Her practice examines landscape, representation, and power. In Ariana, shot in Afghanistan in 2002, she interrogates the concept of the panorama as a tool of colonialist and ideological control. The Last Tour is a fiction set in a near future where the Matterhorn National Park is closed to the public, featuring a dirigible journey and a release of fireflies referencing Pasolini's essay on the disappearance of political ideologies. Travelling Amazonia, filmed along Brazil's Transamazonian Highway, questions perspective and Western representational systems. Hugonnier's works are often presented as installations and have reached beyond contemporary art into visual anthropology. Her latest film, produced with the Film Award London, was shot on the Niger River and pays homage to Jean Rouch, featuring actor Damoure Zikka and sound engineer Moussa Hamidou. The article is written by Florence Derieux, an art historian and independent curator.