« The Foutain with Fish » - Installation by BIBI - from 5th to 8th december 2008 Fête des Lumières (Festival of lights) - Place des Jacobins in Lyon See the video "Since I was little, I have bathed in the glow of my father’s collection of coach lanterns. At the start of the ‘80’s, my discovery of the Japanese paper lamps in the design space at the Pompidou Centre and the Basle carnival lanterns led me to reflect upon the magic held by these very simple objects. At the Mouled celebration, during Ramadan in Cairo, I was fascinated by the blend of traditional white iron Lamps and Neon lights in an urban setting: imagine Africa’s biggest town completely lit in fluorescent green: that is paper lanterns ! In 1991, my work on containers and traffic cones materialized through a plastic lantern installation over the water at Martigues (Fish, of course !). Maybe you know it already but many marine creatures are fluorescent at night: divers know this of course. Since then, I displayed a large number of installations of luminous fish, often as a urban space hijacker. I have created night installations for the Nimes celebrations and its bullrings (Les Arènes), evening performances, diverse and varied underground luminous installations: Bibi’s Arc, Bibi’s Corral, Bibi’s Hell... I display on walls, façades, music kiosks, telephone boxes, shop windows, and bridges. I use the simplest techniques (some bulbs and a diffuser, a container) and take my creature out on the town façades. Indeed, when urban space is phagocytosed by lights, we paradoxically lose the habit of looking at them. It is why my creatures are urban UFOs like the subliminal messages provided by Tags. "The Foutain with Fish" Creation and artistic production : BIBI Project Management : Agence Tagada Technical Service provider : Magnum Press Contact : Karen Jouve - Agence Tagada at +33 (0)6 13 01 55 15 or contact@agence-tagada.com BIBI is a pioneer of alternative contemporary art. BIBI is a visual "plastic" artist in the literal sense. He uses plastic matter in its etymological sense (lat. plasticus, gr. plastikos "relative to modelling ") and gives plastic the place that it deserves as the 6th element. Born in 1964 in Tours, he lives and works in Marseille. He first stuffed animals at the age of 10. As a young amateur palaeontologist, he put together his first curiosity cabinet by hunting around in the Touraine "faluns" every weekend. No art school, but an orthopaedics diploma in 1984, allowed him to experiment with thermoformed plastic matter and its unusual similarities to the human body (artificial limbs and orthotics). BIBI then turned towards a more fun technique: "thermo-pleasure". He lives and works successively in Egypt, Paris, Nimes and Sète where he has created dozens of luminous installations (schools of fish), exhibitions and performances from 1992 to 2004.