In 2021, during a road trip in the Camargue with three friends, Sacha Rey began filming flamingoes. His attention turned toward the confrontations between these birds, while seven years of friendship were fading away under the weight of political disagreements. From this rift arose a foundational question: how can we continue moving forward together despite our political disagreements? How do we take care of the collective?

État des lieux des forces en présence (Status of the Forces at Play) is a documentary video installation conceived as an « ethological road trip. » From Barcelona to the Ebro Delta, and then on to the Camargue, transfeminist and environmental activists travel the roads to encounter flamingoes, sharing their activist experiences and drawing inspiration from the birds’ way of life to examine the relationship humans maintain with the collective. The figure of the flamingo—a protected Mediterranean species whose survival relies on group cohesion—becomes the prism through which the film examines the struggles for trans* lives and those for the preservation of wetlands. Conceived alongside ethologist Dalila Bovet, this setup intersects natural sciences and human sciences to challenge the separation between Nature and Culture, and the way biology has been mobilized as an argument for domination.

The wetlands of the Ebro Delta and the Camargue are threatened by rising Mediterranean sea levels. The installation maps this dual territory—both geographical and political—by forging inter-species alliances where social and environmental struggles converge.

This project benefited from the support of the OVNi Biennale in 2026, Carte Blanche from Région Sud in 2026, the Bourse Atomes Crochus from ADAGP, Culture Moves Europe, and the AIA from DRAC PACA in 2025; in 2024 from the Institut Français de Barcelone, ArTeC × CNEAI=, and residencies at SOMA (Marseille), Hangar × Triangle Astérides (Barcelona), and Casa de l’artista (La Senia); in 2023 from the Fondation des Artistes; in 2022 from Mécènes du Sud Aix-Marseille, development aid from DICRéAM (CNC), and the « Locus Sonus Vitae » residency (ESA Aix). In 2024, the project was nominated for the Prix COAL.

Lea-Rener, portrait of Sacha Rey

Biography of Sacha REY

Born in 1991 in Nice and living in Marseille, Sacha Rey is a visual artist and performer. He defended a research thesis on his working methodology, « documentary dance, » at EHESS Paris. Sacha has applied this method in his three previous films and installations: « But I’m a Cheerleader, » which he presented in a solo exhibition during the FID in Marseille and for which he won the Prix Sud Émergence at the OVNi festival in 2024; « To Wander So Many Miles in Vain, » which screened at Cinéma du Réel in 2022; and « This Picture of You, » with which he obtained his degree from the Beaux-Arts de Paris with honors from the jury in 2019.

His filmic works and performances have been featured in festivals and exhibitions such as: Cinéma du Réel at Centre Pompidou (Paris, 2022), the Amiens Film Festival (FIFAM, 2024), La Villette (Paris, 2023), Villa Vassilieff (Paris, 2016), Bétonsalon (Paris, 2017), Fondation agnès b (Paris, 2023), Le Générateur (Gentilly, 2017), Festival Parallèle (Marseille, 2022), as well as at the Stadtmuseum (Düsseldorf) and the Spiral Wacoal Art Center (Tokyo) in 2019.

Sacha has also performed in France, Belgium, and Japan for choreographers and visual artists such as: Jocelyn Cottencin, Matthieu Doze, Julia Droga, Emmanuelle Huynh, Jennifer Lacey, Hoang Lê, Yuko Mohri, Daniel Nicolaevsky, Clédat & Petitpierre, Rully Shabara, Nathalie Talec, and Mélio Villemot. Excerpts of his performative work as well as performances in which he participated as a performer can be viewed in his showreel.

État des lieux des forces en présence, location scouting, Pont de Gau park, Camargue, 2024. © Sacha Rey

« From a transfeminist perspective, I develop a working methodology that I call a ‘documentary dance.’ The filmic setups I design seek to interview the physical memories of the participants. My filmmaking practice is nourished by somatic education, ‘learning the awareness of the body moving in space.’ Through performative arts, sports practices, or non-human points of view, my films and performances strive to create a form of ’empowerment’ for minority experiences. Driven by the desire to compose ‘an ode to the multiplicity and instability of identities’ (I. Alfonsi), I construct setups to bring symbols and worlds together in order to question the hegemonic representations in cinema history. This is why I craft visual metaphors, uniting meanings that in binary thinking might be considered antagonistic. Metaphor thus allows for the creation of surprise, disruption, a ‘sudden opening of an electrical circuit.’

To stay in motion, I create situations where improvisation occupies a central place. Using this method, I focus on filming people through their bodily knowledge to resist the objectification of bodies. Music, poetry, and dance then allow for the representation of a person’s agency. Through my films, I attempt to question how representations of intra-human violence in cinema can impact our lives. I thus elaborate visual strategies that offer affected individuals the opportunity to receive these works without triggering their traumatic memories. I draw inspiration from bodily symptoms to translate them into my way of filming: the blurriness of dissociation, the doubling of realities, the specter and reminiscences of projections, noisy images, never sharp, to evoke trouble or unease… I attempt to build a cinema that belongs to the haptic realm, making images tactile so that viewers want to touch the image like sculptures with which one is allowed to dance. In fact, my video installations made of fabric prints, balloons, or t-shirts invite touch.

In immersive works, I desire to reconnect viewers to their own bodies. They can then be pushed toward their own sensations and their own struggles. My visual research thus connects with these questions posed by transfeminist philosopher Emma Bigé: ‘What prevents epidermises from coming into contact? How do race, gender, sexualities, and their exclusions play a role in the touches we address to one another? In other words, what holds us back from touching each other?' »

Sacha Rey