The exhibition “Midnight Zone” by the French-Swiss artist Julian Charrière is dedicated to the fascinating yet threatened world of the oceans and the element of water. In immersive installations, video works, photographs, and sculptures, Charrière combines artistic, scientific, and ecological perspectives, offering a multifaceted view of the deep sea as a habitat, resource, and politically contested space. The exhibition, on view at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg from March 14 to July 12, invites visitors to experience the hidden zones of the seas through their senses and to reflect on the impact of human activity on fragile ecosystems.
Image above: Julian Charrière, Midnight Zone (video still), 2024, 1-channel video (4K), 16:10, color, 3D ambisonic soundscape, 56 min, © the artist / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026
In the heart of the Pacific Ocean, dazzling light shines through a rotating Fresnel lens, gigantic submarine glaciers tower above the viewer, and divers float seemingly weightless in Mexican cenotes. The exhibition “Midnight Zone” by the French-Swiss artist Julian Charrière (born 1987) presents a fascinating exploration of the mysterious world of water in the main hall of the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg.
Julian Charrière’s multimedia works connect art, the environment, and science. At the heart of the exhibition is the most essential element of life on Earth: water. It is the foundation of our planet’s biosphere, the habitat of countless organisms, and at the same time a fiercely contested resource. The show therefore illuminates not only the sensory and metaphorical dimensions of water but also numerous political contexts, including global water pollution and ocean acidification, the melting of glaciers and polar ice caps caused by the human-induced climate crisis, and the threat to the seabed posed by deep-sea mining.
The “Midnight Zone”—in scientific terms, the completely lightless zone of the oceans at depths between 1,000 and 4,000 meters—is the focus of Charrière’s current artistic work. The exhibition’s title video shows beams of light directed into the deep black darkness of the Pacific Ocean by a rotating Fresnel lens, originally developed for lighthouses. Schools of diverse fish species are seemingly magically drawn to the light and circle the lens. In doing so, Charrière reveals the astonishing abundance of life even in these little-known regions and simultaneously highlights their particular vulnerability.
Complementing the large-scale video installation, a walk-in, octagonal glass pavilion was created specifically for the exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg. The Fresnel lens from the video hangs at its center. Inside the pavilion, the rotating lantern generates a dynamic beam of light that inscribes itself into the exhibition space like a ghostly presence.
Julian Charrière’s Midnight Zone is the largest solo exhibition to date by the internationally active artist. Realized in cooperation with the Museum Tinguely in Basel, the show creates an immersive space for experience within a scenography developed specifically for the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, where image, sound, and body merge. Video and sound works, sculptures, photographs, and installations make the exploration of water, oceans, and the biodiversity of the deep sea accessible in a multisensory way.
WHEN?
Opening: Friday, 13. March 2026, at 7 pm followed by a party
Exhibition dates: Saturday, 14. March to Sunday, 12. July 2026
WHERE?
Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg
Hollerplatz 1
38440 Wolfsburg
