In preparation for its 60th anniversary edition in 2027, Prague Quadrennial will host an international in-person symposium: Performing Exhibitions, Curating Scenographies.

Focusing on the rich interconnections between contemporary scenographic practices, curating, and exhibiting, the symposium will feature a wide-ranging line-up of more than 60 speakers from all over the world. Discussions will address silence as a curatorial condition, working with “living” archives, and new approaches to exhibiting the scenographic heritage and national representation in the context of Prague Quadrennial. Further topics include the use of digital technologies, multisensory and embodied exhibition practices, and perspectives that move beyond the human.

Clémence Farrell, scenographer, designer, and exhibition architect working in France and internationally, will present in Czechia for the first time. After studying at École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs (ENSAD Paris), she worked as a set designer in film and television production. In 2008, she founded her own studio specializing in exhibition architecture, scenography, and the design of interactive elements and multimedia solutions for museum and gallery displays as well as cultural events.

Clémence Farrell has contributed to more than 70 exhibition projects, including the architectural concept for the recently concluded 36th São Paulo Art Biennial, or the scenography of the Biennale of Contemporary African Art in Dakar (2024). Her work has been presented, among other venues, at Louvre Abu Dhabi, Paris’s Grand Palais, Mémorial de la Shoah, Versailles Palace, Oceanographic Museum of Monaco, Paris Philharmonie, Institut du monde arabe, and the SOMETHING gallery in Abidjan. In 2016, she received the European Educational Program Award for the exhibition Natur Detektive, created for the Stuttgart Natural History Museum.

In her keynote presentation, Immersion in the Exhibition Space, Clémence Farrell draws on her extensive exhibition-making practice —from the Biennale in Dakar to collaborations with the Musée du Louvre Abu Dhabi—to reflect on immersion as a dynamic scenographic strategy that shapes the social and political engagement of audiences.