Marcel Mrejen
One Big Economy of the Sun - Installation - 2023
presented as part of the exhibition Panorama 25
One Big Economy of the Sun is an audiovisual installation in which documentary facts overlap with fiction, reflect- ing on the geopolitical impact of the extractive forces that transform our world. Based on rumours, fake news, and viral tweets, this narrative puzzle questions how algorithmically fed information is shaping our memory. Since 2006, thousands of Chinese workers have been arriving daily to work in Algeria. Secluded in camps attached to the construction sites where they work, this exiled labor force lives in isolation, on the margins of Algerian society. Refusal of taking care of the dead by construction companies led to the mysterious disappearance of workers' bodies after work accidents occurred. These forms of politics question the continuity of a collective memory for these workers, ghosts expunged from history.
The climate crisis is affecting particularly Northern Africa in dire and far-reaching ways, amplifying long-standing problems, and sharpening socio-economic inequalities. One Big Economy of the Sun aims to articulate a metaphysical query around light as a form of memory. Illuminated by an artificial sun, this nightless world embodies the capitalist utopia of infinite growth. How to remember those made invisible? Exiled workers and ghosts of an energy quest.
Marcel Mrejen
Marcel Mrejen (FR/DZ), born in 1994 (Paris), is a visual artist exploring the articulation of technology within living and economic metabolisms. The form of his work ranges across various media sculptural installations, filmmaking, software, and publishing. He graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in 2018. In collaboration with Eliott Déchamboux, his book L'Europe c'est Deutshland quand tu rate laba tu est foutue mon frère, le reste c'est du fouma-fouma ! was published by Jungle Books in 2019.
