Marguerite Humeau explores the fundamental questions of existence in her exhibition at HAM

Marguerite Humeau: Torches creates an imaginative landscape beneath the vaulted ceilings of HAM Helsinki Art Museum. The exhibition space becomes an ethereal realm where time and place dissolve, allowing the past, present, and future to intersect. Humeau’s exhibition traces a journey from the origins of life on Earth, toward death and rebirth, and the tensions that bind them. 

A holistic sensory experience, Torches explores our shared origins and alternative futures. Sculptures and installations inspired by natural forms are animated through sound and light, creating a layered and poetic narrative. 

“I’m interested in presence – the worlds I (re)create have ceased to exist, they don’t exist yet, or they exist in parallel presents. I don’t see my artworks as artworks; I see them as real life-forms. They have a voice. They have a pulse. They have a heartbeat. They have a rhythm. They are very much alive,” Marguerite Humeau says of her practice. 

Meticulous research and storytelling lie at the heart of Humeau’s artistic practice. She often collaborates with experts from various fields, such as biologists, historians, engineers, and clairvoyants, and draws on archaeology, anthropology, and mythology in her work. 

Humeau is known for her experimental approach and use of unconventional materials such as beeswax, wasp venom, yeast, and cyanobacteria – living organisms that continue to grow throughout the exhibition. 

“Marguerite Humeau addresses the big questions of life and death and constantly pushes boundaries in her art – whether material, temporal, cultural, or intellectual. We are thrilled to present Marguerite’s visionary art at HAM, and later in Helsinki’s new residential area in Keski-Pasila through an ambitious permanent public artwork,” says Arja Miller, HAM’s museum director and curator of the exhibition. 

The exhibition title, Torches, refers to artworks as guides that help us humans navigate across different eras. Like torches, the works illuminate layers of the past and lost worlds, while simultaneously pointing the way toward the future. 

The exhibition is produced in collaboration with ARKEN Museum of Modern Art in Denmark and has received support from the Finnish Heritage Agency. 

Helsinki to host a new public artwork by Marguerite Humeau

The City of Helsinki has approved HAM Helsinki Art Museum’s proposal to commission a public artwork from artist Marguerite Humeau for the Keski-Pasila district. HAM is curating this ambitious, community-centred artwork, which will be sited in Höyrypuisto, a park in the area’s new residential neighbourhood. Humeau describes the work as an exploration of the “age of synchronisation”, reflecting on how communities form, what forces bind them together, and how stories that matter to them evolve over time.

The Guardian of Our Community unfolds as a contemporary ritual: an enacted choreography of bells. At its heart stands a monumental sculpture composed of over two hundred cast-aluminium bells, referencing both the bells worn by herds of reindeer and foxglove blooms. The sculpture will be placed atop a mound planted with climbing and binding species, allowing it both to blend into the park’s design and to rise as a landmark for the new district.

The artwork also incorporates an interactive element: hundreds of hand-held bell instruments will be gifted to the Keski-Pasila primary school, expanding the sculpture into a communal ritual. Through workshops with pupils, Humeau will guide the creation of a soundscape of synchronicity. In time, the original ritual might gradually fade, opening space for new rituals to emerge – cultivated and carried forward by the community. In this way, the work transforms the park into a resonant organism, continually shaped by those who inhabit it.

The acquisition of this public artwork for Höyrypuisto Park in the Ratapihankorttelit area is made possible by Helsinki’s percent-for-art principle. HAM oversees the curation of all public artworks accessioned to the City of Helsinki’s art collection.

About the artist

Marguerite Humeau (b. 1986, Cholet, France) lives and works in London. She received her MA from the Royal College of Art, London, in 2011. Solo exhibitions of her work have been held at Arken Museum (2025), ICA Miami (2024), Lafayette Anticipations, Paris (2021); Kunstverein Hamburg (2019); Museion, Bolzano (2019); New Museum, New York (2018); Tate Britain, London (2017); Haus Konstruktiv, Zürich (2017); Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin (2017); Nottingham Contemporary (2016); and Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2016). Humeau’s work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions, including Somerset House, London (2025),  the 15th Gwangju Biennale (2024); Hayward Gallery, London (2024); 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia The Milk of Dreams curated by Cecilia Alemani (2022); 23rd Biennale of Sydney (2022); Kunsthalle Basel (2021); the Istanbul Biennial (2019); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2019); MAMVP, Paris (2019); the High Line, New York (2017); Château de Versailles, France (2017); Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2017); FRAC Midi- Pyrénées, Toulouse, France (2017); Serpentine Galleries, London (2014); and Victoria and Albert Museum, Sculpture Gallery, London (2014).  In 2023, Humeau inaugurated a 160-acre earthwork, “Orisons,” in the San Luis Valley, Colorado, curated and produced by Black Cube Nomadic Art Museum. She is represented by White Cube. 

Marguerite Humeau: Torches - 21.11.2025–15.3.2026 - HAM Helsinki Art Museum