Stephan Zimmerli is a transdisciplinary artist working across architecture, scenography, visual arts, and music. Trained at ENSAD and under Peter Zumthor, he has designed over 90 theatrical sets, co-founded the Moriarty group, and developed hybrid architectures combining space, sound, and narrative. His current work explores micro-architecture and performance, where drawing reveals mental spaces, memories, and recollections of exile in real time.

For the 2026 Parcours de l'Art, Stephan Zimmerli presents Studiolo de l'Exil (VI) – Studiolo de l'église des Corps Saints, a residency supported by the DRAC PACA Festival Grant. This micro-architecture, constructed of wood, is inspired by Renaissance studioli, spaces dedicated to memory and reflection. At the heart of this structure, the artist creates drawing performances with exiled individuals living in Avignon. From their accounts of lost places, he reconstructs landscapes of memory live, which take shape on the walls of the studiolo.

The installation thus becomes a collective map of exile, where personal stories, urban memory, and the legacy of the Celestines intersect. In dialogue with the history of Avignon, a welcoming city shaped by migration, the project explores the links between displacement, belonging, and transmission. A human-scale refuge within the church, the studiolo invites visitors to traverse a theater of memories where past and present resonate with one another.