Interview with Odile Redolfi

Odile, what is happening in Nice in November?

In November, Nice becomes the stage for an event that floods the city with images and sparks international artistic encounters. The city slows down, yet its hotels come alive. Museums and heritage sites transform into settings for singular experiences, brought to life by 120 artists drawn from both the international art scene and the local territory.

What makes this 2026 edition special?

At Le 109 — former slaughterhouses turned cultural hub of the City of Nice — OVNi gathers its residents for the opening of the biennial. Filipe Vilas Boas, the Associate Artist of this edition, invites them aboard an unstable sculpture: a space for discussion and performance that evokes the imbalances of the world. In doing so, OVNi brings together dancers, choreographers, circus artists, puppeteers, and performers for a unique experiment in Re:public. A singular sequence is taking shape for OVNi — a space and time that can unite all residents around a single artwork, giving rise to remarkable images atop this fedrating structure, one that generates a multiplicity of experiences.

And in the Grande Halle of Le 109 — Pôle de Cultures Contemporaines — what format will be presented this year?

In the grande halle, a monumental collective exhibition — in the tradition of what Nathalie Amae conceived in 2022 and 2023 — unfolds the moving image across multiple forms: immersive, sensory, and intimate. The festival asserts here a manifesto-like vision of what video art can be today. On either side, as every year for the past eleven years, visitors will find the associated exhibitions of OVNi’s longstanding partners: Le Hublot, Le Forum de l’Urbanisme et Architecture, and La Station.

How does OVNi extend across the city and the département?

OVNi spreads through contemporary art venues and heritage sites, from the Espace de l’Art Concret in Mouans-Sartoux to the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. Villas, museums, memorial spaces, and unexpected locations form a constellation through which one wanders — moving from one atmosphere to another, from a blazing luminous work to a more discreet one. From the Grotte du Lazaret to the Musée des Archives, each venue transforms our relationship to the image. Talks and performances punctuate the festival, notably at the Villa Arson, the Musée des Beaux-Arts, the Musée Chagall, and the Centre Culturel de la Providence, a former deconsecrated chapel. New partnerships are being forged this year with the Château de la Napoule and the Villa Kerylos.

What is the most powerful experience OVNi offers its visitors?

Each year, video art steps out of tidy screens and white cubes to infiltrate places where it is least expected. At the close of the festival, six hotels in the Carré d’Or open their doors and become temporary exhibition spaces. The rooms welcome installations conceived by international artists alongside emerging voices from the local scene. The visitor no longer simply observes the work — they inhabit it, move through it, and sometimes lose themselves within it. You enter a room the way you enter a thought.