Arba, Dâk Arba is a photographic and sound installation that echoes the ancestral divinatory arts and man’s propensity for self-examination, for attempting to probe the mysteries of the past, present and future and his persistent desire to decipher signs in nature.

Aware of an energy passing through the fibres of paper that drives gesture and guides the action of chemistry, Fanny Béguély has developed a sensory approach to the medium’s materiality and appearance. Through ritual and a chemical process, the photosensitive layer reacts through spasms, offering up its mysterious prophecy.

To the sounds of Frédéric D. Oberland’s hurdy-gurdy and the voice of Irena Z. Tomažin, viewers survey the fifteen-metre length of paper, turning into those “consultants” of ancient times who, following on from Cumae in Italy, Delphi in Greece and Didyma in Turkey, question Sibyl and Pythia, reading our destines in animal entrails or the flight of birds.

By using the medium of photography as both a technical and psychic tool with the aim of transcending the limits of human perception, the artist confronts us with the irrationality and beliefs that shape our relationship to the world and our relationship to images. Arba, Dâk Arba acts as a metaphor for the universe and reminds us that if reality is visionary, vision is always an affect.