MEG x ADEM

L’ENVEILLÉE

An in situ vigil

During a residency at the Museum of Ethnography Geneva in December 2023, the artistic team behind L’Enveillée immersed themselves in the AIMP (International Archives of Popular Music), listening to songs from around the world devoted to funeral rites. In June 2026, they return to present a vigil created especially for the MEG.

The artistic team of L’Enveillée proposes a unique evening within the temporary exhibition. Vigil songs, laments and funeral chants from every continent, drawn from the AIMP, resonate through the different spaces of the exhibition, revealing their power and singularity. The artists weave a vocal dialogue with these recordings — from song to poem — nourished by their own aesthetic journey and their meditation on dying and the rites that surround it.

An evening to be moved by the necessity of song and poetry at life’s threshold moments — something that has existed in so many places, and which we continue to question today.

Concept: Juliette Kempf
Performance: Roxane Palazzotto, Sylvain Manet, Victor Parente, Carole Verhaeghe
Sound design: Lucas Pizzini
List of sound archives: forthcoming
Production: Le Désert en Ville, Museum of Ethnography Geneva, Ateliers d'ethnomusicologie de Genève (ADEM)

Free admission, but booking is required at: juliette.jamey@adem.ch