Puncturing the Veil: An Interview with Ibis Hospital
At first, maybe even second and third glance, it’s gore. It’s disturbing. Its mannequins flayed out with its innards being anything from munition to medical equipment to layers of distorted skeletal systems and other mixed materials. But upon further inspection, one can see that Ibis, founder of Paris-based brand, Ibis Hospital, is confronting the harshness of both humanity and industry through experimental sculpture and garments.
Harsh, surgical-inspired displays of bodily anatomy integrate in unorthodox, but visually fascinating ways with metals, leathers, bandages, and other synthetic materials, perhaps speaking to a consumption-addicted society we’ve manufactured. It is orderly and brutal.
Photo by: @angelsafternoon
Light/photo assist: @sextravaganz
SFX MUA/styling: @antilyzz
MUA: @makeupmonster___
Hair/coordination: @alicedanielakister
Talent: @4tune________@_paula__luna_@klowlah@makeupmonster___
Leg and arm accessories : @onlyonesloth
For most, it’s nightmarish. For others, it’s an artistic purgatory, a cathartic observation of the world as we have known it and built for generations. Many of these pieces feel like Silent Hill visually, although conceptually strips humanity down to its bare bones and reconstructs it with a technological, pious lens.
Ibis Hospital creates a variety of works, including unconventional garments, sculptural displays, masks, set design, videos, and more. We were lucky enough to speak with Roger of Ibis Hospital regarding his latest influences, and fashion editorials, bringing a new, twisted breath of life to his garments.
Alexia Hill: How long have you been creating these multi-medium art pieces? How would you describe the works you create?
Ibis Hospital: I started making these sculptures in 2020, calling the transformed mannequins “crash tests”. They're graphic experiments in colliding organic materials with the industrial materials that surround us. The wearable pieces I've been making since 2025 are aesthetic prostheses, also made from industrial materials.
Photos by: @Angelsafternoon
AH: What originally spiked your creativity, or desire toward this sort of dystopian, mechanical, anatomical style of work?
IH: Christianity, which has had a profound influence on our culture: we venerate(d) a body nailed to a cross, an instrument of torture. This glorification of suffering is rooted in our collective imagination.
In church, reliquaries preserve and display sacred relics.
There are also the medical advances linked to war, especially after the First World War. Reconstructive surgery was developed to rebuild destroyed bodies, and paved the way for cosmetic surgery.
In popular culture, horror films and video games that explore the limits of the body.
AH: What machinery/technology (or any form of media) is currently inspiring you, and why?
IH: In my current work, I draw on the agricultural and equestrian worlds. I salvage worn-out scrap metal from tools designed to plow, grind and tear up the earth - fragments marked by time, work and harshness. I combine them with leather, an organic and sensual material, to compose hybrid pieces, somewhere between portable sculptures and constraint devices. Some are reminiscent of medieval instruments of punishment, such as the pillory, where the body is exposed, immobilized, delivered to the gaze - between domination and ritual.
Photos by: @wokuplucid Model: @mikaelaception
AH: In your interview with Nasty Mag, you said, "There's nothing moralistic about my work. In the manner of an x-ray, I make an extreme observation of a tacit violence exerting on our morphology." Can you elaborate on this?
IH: Everything that attaches itself to our bodies - iPhones, clothing, nail polish, forks, knives, cars... — are both practical and aesthetic extensions of our souls. What I mean by the term x-ray is that my work doesn't seek to cast a moral judgment on consumer society or on our era. Rather, it aims to emphasize the constant transformation our bodies undergo. I try to amplify what's usually imperceptible, making visible the physical and symbolic impact of our environment on our morphology.
AH: You have created both a lot of sculptural art and wearable art, like masks, chains and now moving into harnesses and experimental garments. Your recent campaigns with Angels Afternoon in an abandoned morgue in Paris are beautiful. Can you tell me about the experience in bringing these photos to life?
IH: The shoot with Oliver Leone was intense!
Set in a freezing 1950s morgue, Oliver directed like a theatre director, every pose is carefully composed, charged with intention. I was lucky to work with a team, the energy was focused.The morgue of Ville-Évrard psychiatric hospital is a cold place, steeped in history. It was tough for the freezing models, but they truly delivered.
Photo by: @angelsafternoon
AH: How does bringing real people into your work change the interpretation/vision/narrative/feeling of the pieces? Does it change it at all?
IH: When real people wear the pieces, they stop being sculptures. It’s not about representing a body anymore, it’s about confronting one. You see how the material reacts to the body, how it moves, and what doesn’t quite work.
AH: Why have you decided to move toward creating more wearable art pieces, or was this something you've always been interested in pursuing?
IH: I'd like to combine sculptures and portable sculptures in a more global, cinematographic or experimental project, which I'm working on at the moment.
AH: What is the purpose behind your art and your act of creating?
IH: I'm looking for a fragile balance between beauty and horror. Each creation is a memory linked to a period of life.
In this search for balance, Roger has created new memories for its viewers. Every art piece could be found in either an abandoned, dystopian aftermath of civilization or a well-esteemed exhibit. With inspirations ranging from Mortal Kombat scenes to the body of Christ in Baroque paintings, from Junji Ito to Resident Evil, there’s an unsettling, yet entrancing air to the works. It invites viewers to consider their own artificiality and mortality, while simultaneously reflecting cultural codes from as far back as the origins of religion.
While we can’t speak for everyone, looking deeper than the rusted ribcages, worn leather masks, and bloodied machine cogs, we feel there will be even more to be observed and uncovered in the ambient world Tanguy continues to explore.
All photos courtesy of @Ibis_Hospital.
