Nicole L’HuillierMembrana Study

Nicole L’Huillier’s Membrana Study is an exercise and initial exploration of the originally planned work Membrana, which cannot be realized as intended due to the constructional problems. For the Gorki, L’Huillier experiments with membrane sculptures: translucent, semi-transparent surfaces that float over the facade like a second skin. In this context, the building is no longer merely a shell in which something happens; it itself becomes an active part of the action. Architecture becomes a resonating body, its facade a giant eardrum.

This approach has emerged from L’Huillier’s many years of artistic research. As a trained architect, she understands space not as something fixed, but as a field of relationships in which bodies, materials, energies, and stories continually influence one another. In her artistic practice, membranes have already appeared as ears, flags, sound systems, instruments, and almost living beings. They form a material and, at the same time, conceptual toolkit with which L’Huillier explores how sound moves, how encounters arise, and how seemingly separate worlds can be interwoven.

For L’Huillier, a membrane is a vibrating boundary that both receives and transmits. Sounds from the present blend with the echoes and memories already inscribed in the building. Inside and outside, street and theater, city and institution, past and present all become part of a shared system of resonance. The Membranas will be activated by ensemble member Mickey Mahar and the artist herself on October 9 at 8:30 pm.

In spring 2027, the artist will transform the Maxim Gorki Theater into a listening organism. Her large-scale work Membrana, created specifically for the Gorki, will unfold across the exterior of the building like a second skin.