Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens: Stacking Crates to Reach a Banana

This exhibition by Quebec-based artist duo Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens examines the human and nonhuman body as sites of measurement, performance, and value. Utilizing the visual language of modern science, including diagrams, charts, and schematics, the artists translate bodily labour and lived experience into abstract models and data. Through video pieces and sculptures, the works explore the tension between quantified behaviour and the irreducible nature of the body. The exhibition features works such as Taming Chance and Anthology of Performance Pieces for Animals, which challenge the notions of human exceptionalism and the limits of epistemological control. By presenting models of non-productivity and granting agency to material and animal bodies, the artists critique the systems that reduce bodies to data, variables, and units of labour, highlighting the ethical stakes of how bodies are instrumentalized as resources to be optimized.