We Are Not Alone — Alien Images

We Are Not Alone - Alien Images

The starting point of the exhibition, the poster for the famous TV series The X-Files, actually conceals a whole other story: that of a mysterious photograph taken in 1975. Its author, the Swiss Eduard Albert "Billy" Meier was renowned for his numerous books, and claimed, with supporting images, to show evidence of contact with inhabitants of other planets. More than just a poster, Meier's photograph belongs to a little-known category of such, taken during UFO sightings, which Ufologists have used to conduct research.

Long before the era of fake news and AI-generated images, UFO photography shattered our relationship with visual evidence. As early as the late 19th century, these blurry, often unsettling images instilled in our societies a "culture of visual doubt" that contemporary photography has continuously questioned and reignited ever since. Along with them emerged a dizzying realm of speculation in which the eye struggles to grasp familiar points of reference-a realm that today's artists are themselves exploring, drawing on the tools and questions specific to our era. More than mere anomalies, these images prompt us constantly to expand the boundaries of reality. Faced with the immensity of the cosmos they hint at, they also invite us to show humility by accepting the unexplained facets of our world.

Echoing these questions, the exhibition We Are Not Alone presents an exploration of the visual world of UFOs and, more widely, that of unidentified aerospace phenomena (UAP). Never completely identifiable yet consistently imposing themselves on our perception, these objects create a unique aesthetic experience, drawn from the visual indeterminacy that typifies them. Their presence in the sky separates them from any context, transforming them into pure, almost ideal forms. Upon encountering these phenomena, witnesses envision all sorts of images-whether imagined or real-which in turn encourage beliefs that many artists are now exploring. Through a selection of contemporary works, this exhibition seeks to chart a route through the mysterious world of "extraterrestrial images," where contemporary photography continually blurs the line between fiction and reality.

CURATOR:  Philippe Baudouin

Born 1981 in Cavaillon, France. Lives and works in Paris, France.

An associate lecturer at Paris-Saclay University, Philippe Baudouin teaches media and technology history at the Cachan University Institute of Technology. He is the author of several books, including Walter Benjamin au micro (MSH, 2021), which was awarded the Walter Benjamin Prize in 2022. He has curated several exhibitions devoted to marginal practices in photography, including Phénomènes, around so-called paranormal images, which was held at the Musée d'Histoire de la Médecine in Paris in 2022-2023. His fascination with UFOs has led him to publish an Atlas des lieux extraterrestres (Lapérouse, 2025)