During Paris Fashion Week, artist Cécile B. Evans debuted her newest project, a short film titled Reception!, which provided the backdrop for the Miu Miu Fall/Winter 2024–25 runway show.
Evans has delved into the underlying structures of digital technologies for some time. In 2016, at the Berlin Biennale, Evans presented What the Heart Wants, which has garnered acclaim for exploring the relationship between race and technology. Critic Hannah Black lauded the work in Artforum, highlighting the artist’s “interest in the technologization of the social.”
French actress Guslagie Malanda portrays humanity’s last surviving translator in the multipart video installation. Specializing in obsolete languages, she operates within a repurposed data center, formerly a government building, transcribing the memories of others into English as the facility succumbs to flooding.
Displayed on screens suspended above the venue space inside the Palais d’Iéna, the AI-generated video was commissioned by Miuccia Prada, the head of the family’s eponymous label.
In an interview with WWD, Prada revealed that she became more acquainted with Evans’s work when the artist proposed a collaboration related to Jean-Luc Godard’s Studio d’Orphée, located at the Fondazione Prada in Milan.
Prada is renowned for integrating artists into her brands’ projects, and according to Evans, collaborating on the Prada show provided an opportunity to explore the video format in a less formal setting and delve into the theme of memory, which has recently captivated her. She noted that it also allowed her to create something new beyond the confines of museum and gallery spaces, describing the collaboration as “a place to experiment.”
