Alliance francaise de Singapore presents it new exhibition ! Inspired by Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men, A Tale of Wondering Wilds brings together five French artists represented by Cuturi Gallery — Gaël Davrinche, Quentin Garel, Mehdi-Georges Lahlou, Julien des Monstiers, and Lionel Sabatté — to trace the passage from untamed wilderness to a world reshaped by humankind, unfolding through three stages: innocence, subjugation, and rebirth through alchemy, ritual and art.
Beyond the exhibition itself, a multidisciplinary public programme has been devised to add new layers of curatorial understanding to A Tale of Wondering Wilds. Dance, cinema, poetry, music, calligraphy and sensory experiences become alternative ways of approaching the questions raised by the artworks, allowing the exhibition to unfold beyond the visual realm.
Designed for different audiences, ages and levels of familiarity with contemporary art in mind, each event offers a distinct entry point into the exhibition. Together, they aim to make its curatorial narrative more inclusive and accessible without simplifying its ideas: audiences are invited to encounter the wild through movement, words, sound, film, performance and conviviality.
- For emotion-seekers — The Secret Room of Urban Bestiary
Friday 4 September, 7.00 pm — followed by a screening of The Animal Kingdom
Friday 11 September, 7.30 pm — followed by a concert by Flanery and curated wines
Created specifically in response to the exhibition, The Secret Room of Urban Bestiary is a site-specific contemporary dance performance by ARTS FISSION that unfolds among the artworks. Through hybrid human-animal figures, the choreography explores ecological loss, urbanisation and the wild that persists within us, giving physical form to some of the exhibition’s central questions.
The work will be presented twice, each time opening onto another artistic medium. On 4 September, the performance will be followed by The Animal Kingdom, extending its reflection on the shifting boundaries between humanity and animality through cinema. On 11 September, dance will encounter live music by French singer-songwriter Flanery and a selection of curated wines, offering a more sensory experience of the exhibition.
- For young minds with a wild imagination — Nature in Words
Saturday 12 September, 3.00 pm
How might a child give a voice to a tree, an animal or a landscape? Led by French poet Laetitia Klotz, Nature in Words invites children to explore their relationship with the living world through a playful slam poetry workshop.
Beginning with sensations, bodies, landscapes, animals and plants before moving towards writing and oral expression, the workshop offers younger audiences their own creative pathway into the exhibition. A goûter shared together will conclude the experience.
- For explorers of new artistic forms — Openings
Friday 18 September, 7.30 pm
Openings brings East and West into dialogue through an interdisciplinary performance combining music, dance and live calligraphy. Moving through different artistic languages and traditions, the performance echoes the exhibition’s exploration of transformation and invites audiences to consider how meaning can emerge through encounters between cultures, gestures and disciplines.
- For those who travel through music — The Elsewhere Within
Saturday 26 September, 7.00 pm
With The Elsewhere Within, the exhibition enters the realm of voice and music. Through an intimate acoustic concert performed in French, English and Arabic, Maria Lavergne explores an elsewhere that is at once geographical and interior, where different languages, memories and imaginaries coexist.
The concert offers another perspective on the exhibition’s wandering wilds: not only nature travelling across territories, but identities and stories moving between cultures and within ourselves.
- For lovers of stories on screen — Whispers in Woods
Wednesday 30 September, 7.00 pm
Through cinema, Whispers in Woods brings audiences closer to the forest and to those who inhabit and protect it. Awarded the 2026 César for Best Documentary and Best Sound, the film follows the transmission of knowledge from a forest guard to his son and grandson.
Its intergenerational story provides a more intimate perspective on humanity’s relationship with nature, shifting the exhibition’s questions towards observation, knowledge, inheritance and our responsibility towards the living world.
- For those who like their art after dark — A Wild, Wild Night
Thursday 1 October, 7.30 pm
To close A Tale of Wondering Wilds, A Wild, Wild Night transforms the gallery into a space for collective celebration. A specially commissioned DJ set by sonic artist howrøng, accompanied by a selection of wines curated by People of Wine, invites audiences to experience the exhibition one final time through sound, taste and conviviality.
More than a closing party, the evening completes the exhibition’s multidisciplinary journey: after encountering the wild through artworks, movement, words, music and cinema, audiences are invited to inhabit it together.
Through these different formats, A Tale of Wondering Wilds becomes more than an exhibition to be observed. It becomes a narrative that can be experienced differently according to one’s age, interests and relationship with art — ensuring that each audience can find its own way into the wild.
Cuturi Gallery x Alliance Française de Singapour
21 August – 1 October 2026
1 Sarkies road – Singapore