Ilanit Illouz

15. MÖREL X MEP Studio 

Au bord du Volcan

“A volcano is a geological beast. You watch it from a distance for a while, looking out for its anger, gauging its rhythm... And then... you make up your mind, and go for it!”

Maurice Krafft, volcanologist, 1979

The Studio presents the latest photographic project by artist Ilanit Illouz, created around Mount Etna in Italy, a volcano which remains active.
The exhibition Au bord du Volcan was conceived as “a narrative built around a cave in Sicily”, in the words of the artist. This cavity, the result of a solidified lava flow, has spectacular strata that bear the traces of this fusion. In Ilanit Illouz’s photographs, this rock aggregate becomes a never-ending landscape, which disrupts our sense of scale through an immersion into its materiality.

Ilanit Illouz captures the life that pulsates on the cusp of these rocks, the movement of the lava that once shaped them, but also the singularity of a place where “a mystery is unfolding that is slower, more immense, and more profound than the fate of a short-lived species”, bringing together two temporalities, our own and that of these immutable stones. 

To make these mutations tangible, Ilanit Illouz has crystallized her prints using ashes and salt brought back from previous travels. This almost alchemical relationship with matter is reflected in the very processes of photography, namely the transmutation of substance into image.

This exhibition is organised in partnership with the CNAP.


About the Artist 

Ilanit Illouz is a graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure d’Arts de Paris-Cergy (2005), she has exhibited at a number of institutions, including the Paysage de l’Île de Vassivière, the FRAC Grand Large – Haut de France (2022), the Musée d’Art Contemporain du Val de Marne, MAC VAL (2019), and the Institut de la photographie de Lille (2020). Her work is held in the public collections of the Musée d’Art Contemporain du Val de Marne (MAC VAL), the V&A (London), the FRAC Grand Large, the Centre national des arts plastiques (Cnap), the Collection des rencontres d’Arles, Neuflize OBC, Photo Élysée in Lausanne, as well as in prestigious private collections.

Edition of 250
17cmx24cm
32 pages

Published in conjunction with the exhibition:
"Au bord du Volcan"
Maison Europeenne de la Photographie, Paris 04.06.2025 - 24.08.2025