ESOTOURISM

With “ESOTOURISME,” a group exhibition curated by Maxime Touratier, the Ateliers Babiole invite visitors on a journey into the heart of contemporary artistic practices linked to mystery, ritual, and the invisible.

The exhibition reimagines the concept of “spiritual tourism” to offer not a journey to sacred sites, but an inner expedition. Through drawing, sculpture, installation, and performance, the participating artists explore the persistence of the sacred in our contemporary imaginations, through symbols, hybrid figures, altars, idols, angels, chimeras, and gestures of invocation.

In an era that is both rationalist and permeated by underground practices—tarot, astrology, witchcraft, beliefs, rituals— ESOTOURISME asserts the place of these marginal forms within the exhibition space. The studio appears as a ceremonial space, and the artwork as a potential vessel for invisible forces, narratives, and energies.

Conceived as a journey of discovery, the exhibition invites visitors to become “esotourists”: people who are willing to look beyond the surface of the visible to enter more intimate, ambiguous, or unacknowledged realms—where contemporary art continues to give form to mystery.

The opening reception will take place on Thursday, July 2, 2026, at 6:30 p.m. at Ateliers Babiole in Ivry-sur-Seine.