Artist Sophia Al-Maria on her fairytale video installation for Miu Miu’s Paris show
Qatari-American artist Sophia Al-Maria tells Wallpaper* the story behind her new video work, which backdropped Miu Miu’s S/S 2024 collection shown in Paris
The classically inspired proportions of Auguste Perret’s 1939-built Palais d'Iéna in Paris – ‘a hymn to concrete’, as it has been described – were the starting point for Qatari-American artist Sophia Al-Maria’s latest project, a video work that provided the backdrop for the Miu Miu S/S 2024 collection shown during Paris Fashion Week S/S 2024 earlier this week. The rationalist building, which now houses the French government’s Economic, Social and Environmental Council, has been the venue for Miu Miu’s shows for several years, transformed by the Italian house season on season.
‘The space of Palais d’Iéna was the starting point – I often start projects by thinking through the architecture,’ Al-Maria tells Wallpaper*. ’Classical brutalism was a wild concept to me – I wanted to make the classical brutalist space even more surreal and multiply the dimensions the audience could view the show within.’
Artist Sophia Al-Maria for Miu Miu S/S 2024
As such, interspersed between the space’s various columns, a series of screens showed Al-Maria’s latest work both prior to the show – a moody cloud-filled sky, suggesting an approaching storm – and during the show itself, where images swerved from a samurai sword-wielding female protagonist to strange, futuristic versions of the Palais’ pillars. The accompanying notes described the film’s setting as ‘a landscape of technological ruins, an imaginary history invented inside the Palais d’Iéna’.
Al-Maria said she first got involved with the project – one of several recent ‘interventions’ of the Miu Miu show space by contemporary artists – after her work was displayed as part of the 2023 exhibition ‘Everybody Talks About the Weather’ at Fondazione Prada’s Venice outpost. Titled The Future Was Desert, her film featured ‘delirious, post-apocalyptic dreamscapes’ set amid the Gulf Region and explored themes of environmental devastation, fossil-fuel dependency and the geopolitical complexities of the region.
‘I knew we had shared interests in human history and deep time,’ says Al-Maria of her affinity with Mrs Prada’s work. ‘There is a theme of questioning what is real and what is not, and in response to this extremely real experience of questioning the present moment, I wrote a sort of ”episode recap” of a fairytale about this [idea].’
As such, the film, titled Gravity & Grace, is described by the house as ‘an old story with a new twist... a fairy tale ending (of the world) about a court jester and a royal guard who can’t agree if life is a tragedy or comedy’. Both characters (‘archetypal twins’) are played by stunt woman Ayesha Hussain, fighting with swords and crossbows in what Al-Maria calls ‘an epic battle over POV’. A soundtrack is with an original piece by Melbourne-based band Divide and Dissolve, arranged by Asma Maaroof, Daniel Pineda and Joshua Fay.
As for the film’s link with the collection itself – which saw Mrs Prada explore ‘a rationale of beauty today... exploding, redressing’ – Al-Maria describes ‘a serendipitous symmetry‘, despite not seeing the full collection prior to creating the film. ‘I was transported when I saw a few of the looks. It felt as if a sensation that I have felt in the air around experiencing the present moment was suddenly embodied and enrobed in [the pieces].’
The S/S 2024 collection was a typically intriguing collection from Mrs Prada, who said she was inspired by ’radically expanding’ notions of beauty. ‘Instead of rigid paradigms, there is a radical expansion, a rich plurality,’ explained the collection notes. ‘Not beauty, but beauties, an embracing of unique characters, the joy of life.’ Looks let moments of glamour clash with the everyday: a golden brocade dress sat over a simple sweater and shirt, a lace petticoat with a blazer. Elsewhere, recent signatures of the house – abbreviated mini skirts, exposed logoed waistbands, elements of sportswear – continued to be riffed upon by the designer.
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
‘The surreal mixed with the quotidian,’ says Al-Maria of what Miu Miu encapsulates for her. ‘The everyday with a twist.’
Jack Moss is the Fashion Features Editor at Wallpaper*, joining the team in 2022. Having previously been the digital features editor at AnOther and digital editor at 10 and 10 Men magazines, he has also contributed to titles including i-D, Dazed, 10 Magazine, Mr Porter’s The Journal and more, while also featuring in Dazed: 32 Years Confused: The Covers, published by Rizzoli. He is particularly interested in the moments when fashion intersects with other creative disciplines – notably art and design – as well as championing a new generation of international talent and reporting from international fashion weeks. Across his career, he has interviewed the fashion industry’s leading figures, including Rick Owens, Pieter Mulier, Jonathan Anderson, Grace Wales Bonner, Christian Lacroix, Kate Moss and Manolo Blahnik.
-
Year in review: top 10 design stories of 2024
Wallpaper* magazine's 10 most-read design stories of 2024 whisk us from fun Ikea pieces to the man who designed the Paris Olympics, and 50 years of the Rubik's Cube
By Tianna Williams Published
-
Sharon Smith's Polaroids capture 1980s New York nightlife
IDEA Books has launched a new monograph of Smith’s photographs, titled Camera Girl and edited by former editor-in-chief of LIFE magazine, Bill Shapiro
By Zoe Whitfield Published
-
A multifaceted Beverly Hills house puts the beauty of potentiality in the frame
A Beverly Hills house in Trousdale, designed by Robin Donaldson, brings big ideas to the residential scale
By Ian Volner Published
-
Giant cats, Madonna wigs, pints of Guinness: seven objects that tell the story of fashion in 2024
These objects tell an unconventional story of style in 2024, a year when the ephemera that populated designers’ universes was as intriguing as the collections themselves
By Jack Moss Published
-
‘He immortalised the birth of the supermodel’: inside Dior’s career-spanning retrospective of photographer Peter Lindbergh
Olivier Flaviano, head of Paris’ La Galerie Dior, talks us through a new Peter Lindbergh retrospective, which celebrates the seminal German photographer’s longtime relationship with the French house
By Jack Moss Published
-
Inside ‘De toutes beautés!’, the Louvre’s new exhibition narrating 10,000 years of beauty ideals through art
‘De toutes beautés!’ marks the beginning of a three-year partnership between the Louvre and L’Oréal Groupe. India Birgitta Jarvis reports on the show for Wallpaper*
By India Birgitta Jarvis Published
-
‘A hat is an alibi, a fabulous lie’: radical milliner Stephen Jones on his career-spanning new Paris exhibition
As ‘Stephen Jones, Chapeaux d’Artiste’ opens at Paris’ Palais Galliera, the British milliner tells Wallpaper* about the transformative power of hats, the one designer he wishes he’d collaborated with, and his lifelong love of Paris
By Jean Grogan Published
-
Maude’s Brâncuși-inspired sex toys go on display in a new Paris exhibition
Maude’s design-led vibrators are now on display at Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, as part of ‘Private Lives: From the Bedroom to Social Media’. Brand founder Éva Goicochea talks to Wallpaper* about partnering with the museum and opening up cultural conversations around sex
By India Birgitta Jarvis Published
-
Watch: Jamie Dornan takes a bath in Le Corbusier’s villa for Loewe Perfumes
Jamie Dornan stars alongside Sophie Wilde in the new Loewe Perfumes 2024 campaign, shot by David Sims in Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye
By Hannah Tindle Published
-
Jonathan Lyndon Chase on creating a ‘complicated and messy’ domestic space for Acne Studios’ latest show
A musing on ‘emotions and the body, and how they affect the space around you’: American artist Jonathan Lyndon Chase tells Mahoro Seward the story behind their Acne Studios runway set, which will backdrop the brand’s S/S 2025 show in Paris later today
By Mahoro Seward Published
-
Paris Fashion Week S/S 2025 highlights: Chanel to Louis Vuitton
Wallpaper* fashion features editor Jack Moss selects the best of Paris Fashion Week S/S 2025, from Chanel’s return to the Grand Palais to Nicolas Ghesquière’s ‘soft power’ at Louis Vuitton
By Jack Moss Last updated