Interview – David Martin, 2026 Laureate
Jef David Martin’s Metaphoric Objects: the DIY fireworks of a modern troubadour
Around About Circus · By Valentina Barone
David Martin is a French author who pushes the boundaries of his juggling techniques. He is interested in creating what he calls poetic shocks with words and object manipulation, a synesthetic way of seeing props used while they inhabit the space. His parents, both astrophysicists, have been fascinated by juggling as a practice since he was a child. Juggling came naturally to him, but only later did he realise his vocation could become a profession. Studying at the preparatory circus school in Bagneux at Le Plus Petit Cirque du Monde, and later in Stockholm at SKH, his process of creation expanded into conceptualising, adding layers, ordinary objects, manipulations and combinations, prop-making, and inventions. While white clubs are still his main element, around this classical core, a contemporary world of layers and engineered props animates unseen, elaborated tricks or effects. Fascinated by medieval jugglers and their musical performances, he is passionate about circus history as an innovator who wants to continue this tradition. His research project, Metaphoric Objects, has now evolved into a show entitled Mechanics of a Dream Machine, which honours traditional circus, renewing the genre through object manipulation and humorous storytelling. For this circusnext interview series, I met the artist connected from Stockholm during one of the project’s residencies.
I know your mother taught you to juggle when you were 5. How is it to start juggling so young and growing with this ability?
David Martin: In Metaphoric Objects’ artistic dossier, there is a painting by my grandmother featuring me in my mother’s arms, while my hands are holding a green ball. So yes, I can say that juggling has been a part of my life since I can recall memories. My mother became fascinated by juggling after seeing Cirque Plume, and, as you might know, the company’s juggler Thierry André made the white clubs trendy. My parents often brought me to juggling events. At age 10 in Rennes, I saw Wes Peden playing at a convention, and I can say that this event deeply fascinated my way of perceiving juggling.
How did you start your intention of becoming a circus author?
David Martin: Before taking into consideration the idea of becoming a professional circus artist, I did university studies in multimedia and art history in Paris. At that time, it was just evident that I wanted to merge juggling with my studies. For example, in my final thesis, From Juggling to Digital Performances, I deconstructed the green contact ball featured in my grandmother’s painting, adding sensors to it, which already showed potential in seeing juggling as a multifaceted art form. I realised I was trying to create shows, and that meant I also needed to know how. I preferred a masterclass at La Maison des Jonglages to my autumn final exam, and this is how it all started. At 22, I entered the preparatory circus school Le Plus Petit Cirque du Monde in Bagneux, and later I pursued my degree in circus techniques at SKH, the school of my childhood hero, Wes Peden.
What is your way of creating juggling, and what does it mean to create through juggling for you?
David Martin: My relationship with juggling changed over time and brought me into a discovery modality I was unaware of through the practice of adding layers to juggling. Clubs are my main apparatus. My mother juggled clubs, Wes used clubs, and at that time, I was fascinated by the aesthetics of juggling as a composition with movement: that was the primary ambition when I joined the school. I arrived at SKH fully convinced to create beautiful pattern sequences with my white clubs, but it wasn’t happening, and I got stuck in my own doubts.
My juggling teacher, Ivar Heckscher – who is also the founder of SKH – told me to try getting engaged with my doubts in a specific range of time rather than giving them constant attention. I play with words and see concepts. It was there that, by writing “Doubt” on my white club and inventing “a daily tango with doubt”, this joke and approach were the first seeds of what is now Metaphorical Objects.
Jugglers in the last century were often engaged in creating their own props. At SKH, we also had a course dedicated to this theme with Erik Åberg. I wasn’t handy at all, but soon it became one of my practices, and I started building things. My routine was a daily studio session, a workshop, then a jump in the library to get some inspiration on what juggling used to be, and then I started to shift.
I also conceptualised my approaches, merging circus with fine arts and comparing a Kandinsky approach to juggling to a Magritte one. For me, at SKH, there is a Kandinsky approach to juggling, which means composing visual music with the standard juggling objects (ball, ring, club) and body movements, like visual music in painting, arranging colours, and shapes. This is somehow the juggling I’ve been taught, the classical standard approach, creating a sequence, choreographing body movements around objects. All the school’s graduation acts somehow showcase this conception of juggling. Benjamin Richter also opened the door to using any objects with his Language of Objects.
Magritte’s approach is conceptual and linked to familiar symbolic objects. I wanted to inspire my juggling approach with Magritte’s style of creating poetic shocks through surrealistic association, merging it with visual language and words. That’s why Metaphoric Objects explores a language linked to object manipulation that attempts to translate metaphors into physical form.
In the third year, SKH has a full semester dedicated to circus research, and I presented Metaphoric Objects in the form of an exhibition. This allowed my application to circusnext to create a show; without the process of participating in the selection, the project would not have existed concretely.
In the show, you blink at the traditional circus using shapes of tamed animals as props. What does this homage mean to you?
David Martin: During my studies, I dug into circus history because I am passionate about it. Through my work, I was interested in creating a tribute to classical circus and, at the same time, a joke, blinking at circus history rather than delivering a lecture on its rich past references. I am also fond of old circus props. For example, today, here with me, I have a star ring from Cirque Medrano from 1930. Metaphoric Objects has this ancient vibe, revisited through the contemporary lenses of my way of creating.
The show is also an attempt to discover the medieval juggler of today. There is a poem written around 1240 by the Occitan juggler Guiraut de Calanson listing all the skills that a juggler must have. One of them is to be able to play nine different instruments, compose rhymes, and jump into four hoops. So, in the show I want to present several of the cited juggler’s skills, bridging them with the essence of juggling, playfulness and musicality.
In a juggling book, I read that in traditional circus, the sea lions were considered the best jugglers in the animal kingdom. It’s from there that I took the idea of creating sea lion props that, in Metaphoric Objects, I animate by juggling with them while I am playing the accordion.
Even the show’s dramaturgy is structured as in a traditional circus show, and sequences are combined to create the full performance. On stage, we are three people juggling the space, making musical visual images. I was interested in exploring this kind of format because of its dream-like qualia: when you remember a dream, it comes to you in fragments rather than as a complete, long sequence.
What is your way of creating your objects, and how do your DIY props come to life?
David Martin: My DIY approach to creating props wants to revive an old sense of surprise, which is nowadays a bit less trendy, but which used to be the juggler’s practice. It’s the same as using fantasy to create images with simple resources. Object manipulation becomes a stage effect: I defined this effect as fairy juggling, in reference to the theatrical genre of fairy plays.
On stage, I use plywood, lots of balloons, tissue-paper confetti, cardboard, gaffer tape, a loop station, a fan, a cactus and a vacuum cleaner, mixing analogue with engineered props. Of course, it’s again somewhat about juggling and classical circus: in the show, I want to bring back Paul Cinquevalli, reproducing his act of juggling with water under an umbrella. My circular speaker looping the club’s beating is an homage to Philip Astley’s horses. The small tent structure is the symbol of the big top. In the voiceovers, I cite Jean-Michel Guy and Jani Nuutinen on the history of juggling, but everything is permeated with humour, and the sketches are in progress.
Who are your influences among artists that you can quote to define and locate your artistic research?
DM: The project is super rich in influences, going everywhere a bit, as a practice. I like to wander in art libraries and websites, exploring and making collections of various artworks, of various mediums and making connections. There is the field of the manipulators: the Language of Objects of Ben Richter, the poetic and musical tools of Atelier Lefeuvre-André, the craftsmanship of Johann Le Guillerm, the synesthetic juggling apparatus of Jorg Müller. There are also the balances and chain reactions of Fischli & Weiss, the anonymous sculptures of Roman Signer, and Calder’s Circus. There are the fragmentations, the « object as subject » writing and the Koulechov Effect applied to circus of the Collectif Mosjoukine for sure.
What is your relationship with the other artists on stage with you?
David Martin: Simon Malmsten and Mirco Morreale have both been my classmates at SKH. Simon is a flyer on the teeterboard, Mirco is a stage technician. They have always been involved in Metaphoric Objects since its beginning. They are somewhere between stage managers and performers, dealing with musical and visual images, but the juggling is all on me. They are also good at building props and inventing crazy solutions.
How did circusnext intersect with your creative project, and what impact have its activities had on it?
David Martin: Riga Cirks, one of the 25 platform members, is the oldest circus building in Europe. Presenting a work-in-progress there as part of a circusnext laboratory has been exciting because of the in-situ resonance between the traditional circus building and the scenes presented; it was a meeting between an old circus revisited and an interaction with the audience, contemporary as Metaphoric Objects is.
Broadening the view, circusnext validated my research, connecting the project with international partners to shape its final form. We are still in the process of sculpting the sequence of scenes that will compose the show, now titled Mechanics of a Dream Machine. We are going to premiere in the spring of 2027.
