“Who are you, Peter?”: the question that opens the 13th exhibition (October 1—January 9) at the Espace culturel Louis Vuitton invites the visitor to explore a fantastical land in which childhood and creation converse with, inspire and galvanise each other. Peter Pan is the boy who refuses to grow up. He lives in childhood as if it were a kind of utopia: without worrying about the impossible, limits or destiny.

From the pen of the Scotsman James Matthew Barrie in 1904, Peter Pan has become a contemporary myth, a symbol of the eternal child. His genius has recently been reduced to a syndrome: Peter Pan syndrome is said to describe people running away from their adult responsibilities. But is Peter Pan characterised by the creation of unprecedented worlds?

Good question… What if Peter Pan represented the creative side in each of us, the side that, in the words of the psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott, “gives the feeling that life is worth living”? This dimension is where boldness and the impossible meet, expanding the world towards the unknown.

Thirteen contemporary artists—Grégoire Bourdeil, Marina de Caro, Michel François, Lothar Hempel, Melonie Foster Hennessy, Ji Ji, Jean-Philippe Illanes, Nicolas Julliard, Arnaud Kalos, Laurent Pernot, Janaina Tschäpe, Virginie Yassef, and Jérôme Zonder—aretaking over the Espace culturel Louis Vuitton, each choosing to explore one aspect of the myth, together sketching a portrait of the troublemaker.

For example, Melonie Hennessy’s installation penetrates time and Laurent Pernot envisages death and eternity. Virginie Yassef, with a giant gold nugget, opens up another world that Arnaud Kalos evokes in a film in which shadows interrupt the treasure of childhood. Jerôme Zonder ventures into the amplitude of love and hate, and the Chinese Ji Ji descends on earth while dreaming. In the window display on rue de Bassano, Jean-Philippe Illanès presents Peter Pan’s house, in which the objects have been strangely revisited.