In ADA, French multidisciplinary artist Alix Marie extends her longstanding investigation of the body into a richly layered meditation on pregnancy, fertility and transformation. Situated at the intersection of photography, collage, textile installation and performative space, the series challenges conventional representations of motherhood by constructing an environment in which the pregnant body becomes both subject and symbol. All the bodies photographed in ADA are women at different stages of pregnancy, grounding the work's symbolic and mythological dimensions in lived bodily experience. Rather than presenting pregnancy as a fixed biological condition, Marie approaches it as a state of continual metamorphosis; simultaneously intimate, mythic and political.
The project unfolds through a sequence of evolving scenes composed of photographic images printed onto fabric and integrated within expansive installations of deep red velvet. This material choice is central to the work’s visual and conceptual language. Velvet functions not only as a backdrop but as an active agent within the installation, evoking bodily interiors, theatrical curtains and ceremonial spaces. Its saturated crimson hue conjures associations with menstruation, birth, loss and regeneration, transforming the exhibition environment into a space that oscillates between vulnerability and power.
Marie’s treatment of photography is particularly compelling. Rather than privileging the photographic image as a self-contained object, she embeds it within a broader spatial experience. The photographs become fragments within a larger narrative architecture, encouraging viewers to navigate the work both physically and visually. In doing so, ADA departs from documentary traditions of representing pregnancy and instead constructs a symbolic realm where bodily experience is translated into metaphor.
Throughout the series, recurring motifs drawn from diverse cultural histories appear as carriers of meaning. Familiar objects associated with fertility and abundance are reconfigured through surreal juxtapositions, generating images that feel simultaneously recognisable and uncanny. Marie is interested in how symbols persist across time and geography, and how they acquire new significance when placed in relation to the pregnant body. Her visual vocabulary draws connections between ancient belief systems and contemporary experiences of gestation, suggesting that pregnancy remains one of humanity’s most enduring sites of mystery and imagination.
Feminist histories and mythological narratives also inform the work. References to warrior women, maternal deities and collective female experience resonate throughout the installation, situating pregnancy within a broader lineage of female agency. Importantly, Marie avoids idealised or sentimental depictions of motherhood. Instead, she foregrounds complexity: the coexistence of strength and fragility, protection and exposure, individuality and collectively. The pregnant figures inhabiting ADA are not passive subjects but active participants in a visual language of self-generation and resilience.
What distinguishes ADA within contemporary photographic practice is its refusal of categorical boundaries. It is neither solely photography nor sculpture, neither installation nor performance, but a synthesis of these forms. This hybridity mirrors the conceptual concerns of the work itself. Pregnancy emerges as a condition that destabilises distinctions between self and other, interior and exterior, body and environment.
For contemporary audiences, ADA offers more than a reflection on reproduction; it proposes a reconsideration of how bodies are represented, remembered and ritualised. Marie transforms personal narratives into a collective visual experience, creating a space where photography becomes a vehicle for exploring profound questions of creation and transformation. In an era increasingly attentive to embodied experience, ADA stands as a powerful contribution to contemporary feminist image-making, demonstrating how photography can move beyond representation to become a site of imagination and renewal.
Annie Stocker, 2026
