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Sara Sadik : XENON PALACE CHAMPIONSHIP
Sara Sadik

  • Video installation
    • |
  • Visual art

In her XENON PALACE series, Sara Sadik turns gallery spaces into fictional hookah lounges.

At LUMA Arles, this ongoing project by the artist takes on a new, interactive dimension entitled XENON PALACE CHAMPIONSHIP (2023) in which the video is activated by the viewer. It features groups of men who gather to escape everyday life and compete against one another to train Xenons, fantastic creatures that emerge from wisps of smoke. A pair of hookah hoses, placed on either side of a large LED screen flanked by an army-grade PVC inflatable bench, feature gesture-recognition sensors and serve as controllers for a competitive fighting game, periodically interrupting the film. Starring Sadik’s close collaborator Émile-Samory Fofana as a lone-wolf protagonist striving to anchor his legacy by entering XENON PALACE’s Hall of Fame, the work furthers the artist’s exploration of masculine tropes and cultural alienation in virtual universes.

The exhibition is produced by the LUMA Arles & Google research initiative.

Informations pratiques

From July 1, 2023 to January 6, 2024
Les Forges
Sara-Sadik

Interview with Sara Sadik

"I wanted to work on a hookah lounge because it's a cultural and political symbol."

In this video, Sara Sadik talks about her "XENON PALACE CHAMPIONSHIP" installation, a fictional chicha lounge featuring a film and video game.

The exhibition is produced by the LUMA Arles & Google research initiative.

LUMA Arles & Google research initiative


In furtherance of LUMA’s long-term focus on the creative potential of innovation, LUMA Arles presents a series of three commissions by Shahryar Nashat, Rachel Rose, and Sara Sadik. Produced as part of a landmark research initiative in partnership with Google to leverage next-generation technology in service of artists’ visions, and developed over the course of a year with leading engineers, the three projects have embedded a wide range of advanced techniques in the fields of artificial intelligence, ambient sensors, colorimetry, biometrics, and human-machine interaction. Rather than an end in itself, innovation is harnessed as a means to further artistic expression, with artists interrogating the liminal space between digital presence, cognition and physical engagement. In exploring the creative edge of today’s most advanced technological tools, LUMA and Google seek to foster an artist-centric dialogue in fast-developing fields where original voices need to be amplified.



Organized by Simon Castets, Vassilis Oikonomopoulos, with Fabian Gröning.

The LUMA Arles & Google research initiative is organized in partnership with Google ATAP, Google Arts & Culture, and Google Brain by Camille Bénech-Badiou, with Gabriel Vergara II.

Thanks to Dr. Joelle Barral, Dr. Olivier Bau, Dr. Lucas Dixon, Dr. Kelly Dobson, Laurent Gaveau, Sebastien Missoffe, Dr. Ivan Poupyrev, Emily Reif, Amit Sood, Jonathan Tanant.

Sara Sadik

Sara Sadik

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Sara Sadik was in residence at LUMA Arles from march to june 2021.

Sara Sadik was born in 1994 in Bordeaux. In 2018, she obtained a master’s degree from Bordeaux School of Fine Arts. She lives and works in Marseille. She works on French youth from working-class neighborhoods and its culture, documenting its mysteries and deconstructing social mythologies, particularly those related to adolescence and masculinities. Her work is expressed in videos and performances, ranging from documentaries to science fiction and reality TV. Her work has been shown in group exhibitions at 221 A (Vancouver, 2017), Karma International (Zürich, 2017), the Open’er Festival (Gdynia, 2017), Roodkapje (Rotterdam, 2018), Wallach Gallery-Columbia University (New York, 2019), Galerie Édouard Manet (Gennevilliers, 2019), Triangle France-Astérides (Marseille, 2021), Munchmuseet (Oslo, 2021) Magasins généraux (Pantin, 2021). She performed at the Do Disturb Festival, as part of the Triangle France-Astérides program (Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2019), and at the Parallèle Festival (Frac PACA and Friche Belle-de-Mai, Marseille, 2020). Her work is also featured in public collections such as the Cnap, the Frac Nouvelle-Aquitaine MÉCA, the Frac PACA, and the City of Paris Museum of Modern Art. She is represented by the Crèvecœur Gallery, in Paris.