Scavengers

a 360 degrees panorama

Scavengers

©2020, Laurent Mignonneau & Christa Sommerer
developed for the TransArt Festival at Centro Trevi in Bolzano and supported by MEET Milano

Beetles form a group with more than 350.000 known species. They come in many variations and forms and they have fascinated humans since the beginning of man kind. As an important part of our ecosystem insects also digest and process organic material and bring it back into the life cycle of the eco system.
Humans however have recently caused an immense environmental crisis, leading to global climate change, environmental pollution and the extinction of many animal species, including insects.

Scavengers is an animation which wants to alert us about the importance of beetles for our environment. Artificial insects struggle to clean up human produced debris. These scavengers try to digest inorganic trash and pollution, and turn it back into nature. This is of course an utopian vision; it would be up to us humans to accomplish this task.

Scavengers Exhibitions

2026 Automatic Gallerie
02 April to 17 May 2026
Featuring Scavengers (2020), The Value of Art (Unquiet Sea), 2010, and ANTopolis (video) 2021
- Sofia, Bulgaria

2025 EcoArt. Art and (Non)human Agency
Museum of Non-Conformist Art
6 September — 9 November 2025
Featuring: Scavengers and Let-it-Grow (Christa&Laurent portrait)
- St. Petersburg, Russia

2025 Galerie Charlot Paris
"Esprit des forêts - Group Show" from June 6 til July 30 2025
Featuring our "Scavengers" video from 2020 and insect drawings
-Paris, France

2024 The Artwork as a Living System at the Azkuna Zentroa, Bilbao (February 7th until May 26th, 2024)
Retrospective exhibition Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau
Curators: Karin Ohlenschläger
Featuring "Interactive Plant Growing", "A-Volve", "Phototropy", "Life Writer", "Mobile Feelings II", "Portrait on the Fly", "Haze Express", "Eau de Jardin", "People on the Fly", "Fly Plotter Portraits", "Digital Fly Portraits", "Scavengers", "The Value of Art", "Fly Objects", "Ar(t)chive", and "ToBee"
Co-production in collaboration with the ZKM, Karlsruhe (DE) and the OÖ Landes-Kultur, Linz (AT)
- Bilbao, Spain

2023 The Artwork as a Living System at iMAL Brussels (from April 14th to Sept 24th 2023)
Retrospective exhibition Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau
Curators: Karin Ohlenschläger
Featuring "Interactive Plant Growing", "A-Volve", "Phototropy", "Life Writer", "Mobile Feelings II", "Portrait on the Fly", "Haze Express", "Eau de Jardin", "People on the Fly", "Fly Plotter Portraits", "Digital Fly Portraits", "Scavengers", "The Value of Art", "Fly Objects", "Ar(t)chive", and "ToBee"
Co-production in collaboration with the ZKM, Karlsruhe (DE) and the OÖ Landes-Kultur, Linz (AT)
- Brussels, Belgium

2022 OK Zentrum Linz "The Artwork as a Living System" (2nd Sept 2022 - 26th Feb 2023)
Retrospective exhibition
Curators: Alfred Weidinger and Genoveva Rückert-Sommerauer
Featuring "Interactive Plant Growing", "A-Volve", "Phototropy", "Life Writer", "Life Spacies II", "Mobile Feelings II", "Portrait on the Fly", "Haze Express", "Eau de Jardin", "People on the Fly", "Fly Plotter Portraits", "Digital Fly Portraits", "Scavengers", "The Value of Art", "Fly Objects", "Anthroposcope", "Antopolis", "Ar(t)chive", and "ToBee".
- Linz, Austria

2022 ZKM Retrospective "The Artwork as a Living System" (07.May.2022 – 31.July.2022)
(video trailer) (STIR World article)
Retrospective exhibition
Curated by Peter Weibel (Cuator), Jessica Menger (Co-Curator), Philipp Ziegler (Co-Curator). Nina Liechti (Curatorial Assistance)
The interactive installations in the exhibition tell the story of almost 30 years of artistic work by the Austrian-French artist duo Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau.
Based on an idea of Karin Ohlenschläger.
The exhibition is a co-production of ZKM | Karlsruhe, OÖ Landes-Kultur GmbH, Linz and iMal, Brussels. The exhibition is accompanied by a scholarly publication in English edited by Karin Ohlenschläger, Peter Weibel and Alfred Weidinger in the Leonardo Book Series in collaboration with MIT Press.
Featuring "Interactive Plant Growing", "A-Volve", "Phototropy", "Life Writer", "Life Spacies II", "Mobile Feelings II", "Portrait on the Fly", "Haze Express", "Eau de Jardin", "People on the Fly", "Fly Plotter Portraits", "Digital Fly Portraits", "Scavengers", "The Value of Art", "Fly Objects", "Ar(t)chive", and "ToBee".
- Karlsruhe, Germany

2020 Media Art Lab
online exhibition for the 20th Anniversary of Media Art Lab
Featuring "Scavengers"
Curators: Olga Shishko and Elena Rumyantseva
- Moscow, Russia

2020 Transart Festival Bolzano
Featuring "Scavengers"
360 Panorama
Hosted by the Trevi Art Center, Bolzano
In collaboration with the Meet Center, Milano
Curated by: Maria Grazia Mattei
- Bolzano, Italia