Projects and exhibitions

(selected)

Mécaniques Discursives unfolds as a body of work developed over time by Fred Penelle and Yannick Jacquet, through a wide range of exhibitions and contexts. Each project emerges from a specific situation, while contributing to a broader, evolving visual system.

This page brings together a selection of projects from nearly a hundred exhibitions to date. It does not aim to be comprehensive, but rather traces a subjective path through some of the moments and forms that have shaped the work.

Sarabande In Time of Crisis

A performative extension of Mécaniques Discursives - 2025

Sarabande en Temps de Crise (Sarabande in Times of Crisis) unfolds as a cross-disciplinary experience combining choral performance, installation and theatrical staging. Developed as an extension of the project Mécaniques Discursives, this new work brings to a head a line of research initiated in 2019 by Fred Penelle and Yannick Jacquet. It continues their ongoing exploration of hybrid temporalities, weaving together references from distant eras, from medieval festivities to speculative futures.

Both monumental and immersive, the piece invites audiences into a ghostly ball populated by chimeras, celestial figures, dancing skeletons and headless birds. By colliding symbols and timelines, Sarabande in Times of Crisis creates a space where past and future overlap, where folklore meets meets science fiction. The result is a layered sensory experience, balancing irony with a more unsettling, darker edge.

A solemn and introspective repertoire.

Music forms a central axis of the piece, shaping a soundscape where early sacred compositions meet contemporary writing. The repertoire, ranging from Hildegard von Bingen to Johan Duijck, unfolds through choral voices, simple ascending harmonies and monophonic textures, interwoven with more minimal and atmospheric sonic layers.

Blending meditative stillness with subtle tension, the composition navigates between the sacred and the contemporary. Voices resonate within a spatial sound design, creating an immersive environment that is both intimate and transcendent — a suspended space where ritual, contemplation and sonic matter converge.

Credits
Fred Penelle & Yannick Jacquet - Concept
Yannick Jacquet - Direction
Les Bruxelloises - Vocal ensemble
Thomas Vaquié - Sound Design
Sarah De Geyter - Costumes
Interval.ooo - Production
Nicolas Boritch - Producer

Repertoire: Johan Duijck, Hildegard von Bingen

Don't Follow The Guide!
A Monographic Exhibition

Touring exhibition since 2021

The tourning monographic exhibition plunges us into the universe of Mécaniques Discursives created by Fred Penelle and Yannick Jacquet. There, we find their visual languages expressed through different formats. Works echo and respond to one another. Motifs and infographic data collide in the deceptive discursive turbulence conjured up by the two artists. The journey is presented as an entirely three-dimensional experience. This 360° narrative labyrinth, haunted by the vanity of our own inner mechanics, has only one instruction: “Don’t follow the guide”.

Laboral Centro de Arte - LEV Festival 2021

Site specific installation

Gijón, Spain 23.07.21 > 23.01.22 - Commissioned by L.E.V festival and LABoral

This site-specific installation in Gijón, Spain was commissioned by L.E.V festival and LABoral in 2021. Set up in a large venue, the installation fully immersed visitors in the universe of Fred Penelle and Yannick Jacquet. This iteration marks the largest indoor configurations of of Mécaniques Discursives to date.

Retable

2019

Inspired by the tradition of medieval altarpieces, Retable takes on their structure and shifts it into a different territory. Fred Penelle and Yannick Jacquet draw from this historically religious form to develop a contemporary reinterpretation, freed from any strictly liturgical reading.

The work unfolds as a kind of secular, almost pagan altar, where figures, symbols and image fragments coexist within a composition that is both structured and unstable. As in Mécaniques Discursives, motifs echo one another, transform and move across different registers, without ever settling into a single narrative.

Retable thus becomes a space for projection, where older forms are reactivated within a contemporary imaginary, balancing between inheritance and transformation.

Ferme Lachapelle

Site specific installation
Geneva 2019

PLAY

touring exhibition

PLAY is the first traveling exhibition of Mécaniques Discursives, developed from 2019. Commissioned by the Centre Culturel du Brabant Wallon, the project unfolds as a series of modular scenes that can be adapted to different spaces.

The installation brings together carved wooden figures by Fred Penelle, inspired by interviews with local residents, alongside a video dimension by Yannick Jacquet. Together, they form a visual narrative oscillating between memory, fiction and dreamlike imagery.

Perte de Signal

Perte de Signal - Montreal - CA / 2016

The site-specific installation for art gallery Perte de Signal in Montreal, in 2016 marked the first time that Yannick Jacquet used digital 3D optical illusions inspired by Renaissance techniques in his work. This added a new dimension to the artwork and allowed for multiple layers of interpretation.

Semaine Digitale

Site specific installation
Bordeaux 2016

The Semaine Digitale site-specific installation in Bordeaux in 2016 was the first outdoor exhibition for Fred Penelle and Yannick Jacquet. This experience inspired them to create larger-scale projects on building facades, expanding the reach and impact of their work.

Thionville

Site specific installation
Puzzle - Tionville - FR / 2016

This site-specific installation, presented at Puzzle in Thionville in 2016, marks an early exploration of larger-scale compositions within Mécaniques Discursives. Developed in response to the curved architecture of the space, the work expands across the walls, introducing a new relationship between image, scale and viewer. Figures and visual elements unfold within a continuous environment, inviting a more physical and spatial form of engagement.

This project opens the way to later installations, where scale and spatial composition become central to the development of the work.

Centquatre Paris

Site specific installation
Némo / Biennale Internationale des Arts Numériques Centquatre / Paris / F - 05 December 2015 - 30 January 2016

This site-specific installation, presented at Némo – Biennale Internationale des Arts Numériques at Centquatre in Paris (2015–2016), marks a key moment in the development of Mécaniques Discursives. For the first time, the work unfolds as a complete spatial environment, extending beyond the wall to fully engage the surrounding space. Images, structures and visual elements interact across different planes, creating a continuous system rather than a fixed composition.

This project introduces a new scale and approach, laying the groundwork for later installations where space becomes a central component of the work.

Lux Valence

Site specific installation
LUX - Scène nationale de Valence / F - 20 December 2014 - 7 March 2015

This site-specific installation, presented at LUX in Valence in 2014, marks an early stage in the development of Mécaniques Discursives. Spread across multiple rooms, the project explores the articulation of images and elements within a connected system. Rather than a single composition, the work unfolds through a series of relationships, laying the groundwork for later installations.

This project introduces key principles that will continue to evolve, particularly the idea of images interacting within a broader spatial structure.