After ten years as a set designer for opera, concerts, theatre performances, and contemporary art exhibitions, French artist Philippe Quesne created Vivarium Studio in 2003 in Paris, a laboratory for theatrical innovation which features painters, actors, dancers, musicians and a dog. The performances of Philippe Quesne showcase simple yet fantastic images – an improvised amusement park in a deserted snowy landscape, explorers in potted plant jungles that re-enact the Big Bang, or a thirty-year-old Serge playing in his apartment with a toy car that draws circles with a sparkler. In his creations a childlike amazement in front of the magic of theater meets with a gentle melancholy about the limitations of mankind.

Concept, direction, set: Philippe Quesne
With: Isabelle Angotti, Rodolphe Auté, Snæbjörn Brynjarsson or Cyril Gomez-Mathieu, Yock Fosset, Sébastien Jacobs, Victor Lenoble, Émilien Tessier, Gaëtan Vourcʼh
Production: Delphine Vuattoux / Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers
Co-production: Wiener Festwochen, Hebbel am Ufer, La rose des vents – Scène nationale de Lille Métropole à Villeneuve d’Ascq, Nouveau théâtre – Centre dramatique national de Besançon, Ménagerie de Verre – Paris, Le Forum – Scène conventionnée de Blanc-Mesnil, Le Carré des Jalles, Festival Perspectives de Sarrebruck
Premiere in Vienna, 2008