One reason has the power to seamlessly push our minds, senses, and bodies to this very place, and behold,
here we are—both you and I. Yet, how many individual selves become a collective 'we'? What framework
acts as the catalyst for this communal identity? And when the 'we' emerges, what comes out of it? Moreover,
when the 'we' dissolves, what remains of it?
To unravel these inquiries, Debbie Alagen articulates the hypothesis in their eponymous first solo exhibition:
One reason to come brings many to stay.
Through an emperical and operational approach, they envision an artificial space conducive to a state
change where the universal constant of self intuition governs this passage - taking into account that space is
somewhat in the eye of the beholder. Brain chemistry is not altered but thoroughly examined - it will
eventually be stimulated, but more importantly, listened to, authorized, and amplified.
Pursuing unity, Alagen readies the groundwork for their experiment. It would first involve breaking free from
the labyrinth of our misunderstandings, carving a path through our insecurities, confronting the eerie
universality of our intrusive thoughts because, in the end, "it’s not that deep." In their work, Alagen offers to
return to the essence of our multiplied paradigms against the social aberrations of confining our
consciousness in boxes – They disrupt paralyzing "what if?" and dizzying "whys." They capture these
threads of thought in midair and, in a bittersweet mix, celebrate them with compassionate irony : decipher or
simply let it go —you have the choice.
Approaching the neural center of the exhibition, a liminal space of thoughts (in opposition to the manifest
space of acts) behaves like a mental border with a progressive contour. It is a transition space between
reality and abstraction, where identity feels hazy and evanescent. Various paintings floating around stand as
receptacles resembling oysters, in which one can sometimes observe their reflection in the mother-of-pearl.
We can dissociate enough to understand each other in a synesthesia associating colors, textures, and
materials, sounds, emotions, and words. By hanging intrusive thoughts on the wall, subjectivities that slow
down are silenced, in favor of objectivities that accelerate for the sake of the experience: from the specific to
the general, from self-discovery to collective exploration.
In a grand simulation to bring out the best in togetherness, Alagen induces the mutation of the subjective self
into the objective 'we' to observe the creative momentum, through a dinner - universal togetherness,
mellowly familiar to everyone, where hospitality opposes rejection, exclusion, and discrimination. This
manifest space of acts (in opposition to the liminal space of thoughts) is where you feel humanity around
you, you feel comfortable, important, established because each individual self feels acknowledged, as deep
as they need.
This creative momentum has been activated by the unity of a group linked with each other psychologically
and physically in a seamless fashion, by the heady vibrations of the diegetic ambient music of Être peintre
followed by a dinner staged by Linn Nora Henz – a tasting-improvisation in 4 acts: entry-exhibition, main
course-climax, dessert-resolution. We vibrate at the same frequency and ingest the same food to truly
discover the other in oneself and oneself in the other - a chiasmus of dialogue essential for the emergence of
a unique 'we', a troupe, a ‘cosmo-monolithic’ body.
At the center of the exhibition, the culmination of essential subjectivity. The dining table, a load-bearing
structure, whose remnants are evidence of an evaporating memory and witnesses of a creative surge.
Alagen welcomes us and perhaps hastens us, with gentleness and lightness, towards this mirrored world of
resolutely soft, dissolved, and fluid relationships. Their construction of a politics of the intimate and hospitality
within these transitory spaces gives free rein to the vicissitudes of creative potential: art in its most organic,
dynamic, disorganized, and expressive form.

The materialization of creative potential is seen on the walls, observed on the table, and becomes many
reasons that have the power to seamlessly hold our minds, senses, and bodies to this very place. As if the
more we stay, the more the invisible traces of these 'I' and 'we' floating in the atmosphere – the echo of the
hubbub, the aftertaste of a dessert – seem tangible.
Throughout this exhibition, Alagen invites you to navigate through details.
In a drop of wine, as through a thread of thought.
In the blink of an eye, as through an emotional knot.
Particles of love that burst, escape, hide, or run away.
It was then that on the edge of drought
Suddenly one will melt at the corner of your mouth,
It will be enough for you to stay,
because one reason to love brings many to stare.
– Yasmeen El-Hamdani