Le Portique has invited Théo Mercier – an artist whose practice ranges from plastic arts to live performance – to question movement, flows, and mutation. The « Necrocean » exhibition is designed as a bewildering journey during which objects are unearthed and moved to new organic cycles. Far from being vestiges and ruins from a vanished civilisation, these hybrid specimens testify to the process of metamorphosis which applies to all species and materials. Nothing is lost, everything is transformed...

These artworks created in collaboration with craftsmen from southern Mexico for the exhibition reveal new forms of expression. Saved from the rubbish bins of Mexico City, tyres, chairs, and plastic bottles take on a new lives and shapes thanks to the artist's intervention. They are the syntax of Théo Mercier's poetic and artistic language.

By using the portmanteau word « Necrocean », the artist tells the story conveyed by these objects, the traditions and cultural traces of which they are the heirs of, but also the journey of these artworks from Guerrero –the craftsmen’s workplace – to Le Havre. The exhibition evokes the sea as an invitation to travel, but, above all, as a space contaminated by the transport and flow of materials, goods, objects, and waste – sometimes referred to as « the plastic continent ». The exhibition addresses the complex issue of globalisation, focusing on the sea as a space of transition : a space where everything is permitted and controlled at the same time. « It tells the story of the ocean that separates Mexico from France : a space where objects move, live, die, and drag on and on. It is also a way to raise the issue of the « remote » and transatlantic production process of this project that I specifically envisioned for Le Havre. Where the artworks are displayed and how they are produced are crucial issues themselves. This is why I make every effort to create specific pieces for the places I am invited to. »