Originally trained as a biologist, Olivier de Sagazan turned to painting and sculpture with the ever-present idea of questioning organic life. From his passion for giving life to matter came the idea of covering his own body with clay to observe the resulting “object”. This experiment led to the creation of a solo, Transfiguration, in 1998, in which a man is gradually disfigured by clay into a sort of half-man, half-beast, searching beneath his masks for who he is. A similar process of transformation is applied to the dancers in his creations: La messe de l’âne, Les mains ne touchent pas mon précieux Moi, Nos cœurs en terre. His performance Transfiguration has led to numerous collaborations with artists such as Brindilles FKA, Ron Frick for the film Samsara, Qiu Yang for the film O produced by Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Gareth Pugh and Nick Knight, Wim Vandekeybus and David Walh.