French performance artist Abraham Poincheval will, in his words, “become a chicken” in his latest performance stunt, titled Oeuf (Egg). The 44-year-old artist will incubate ten eggs with his own body heat while inside a glass vivarium and on display to visitors at Paris’s Palais de Tokyo museum. “I will, broadly speaking, become a chicken,” Poincheval told the BBC.

Abraham Poincheval in Oeuf (Egg)Abraham Poincheval in Oeuf (Egg)

It takes, on average, 21 days for a chicken egg to hatch once incubation begins. During this period Poincheval will live in the vivarium, wrapped in an insulating blanket – designed by Korean artist Seglui Lee – and sitting on a specially designed chair that holds the eggs in a container under the seat.

During the incubation period, Poincheval will only be able to leave the eggs for 30 minutes per day – during which he will take his meals. The artists plans to eat “heating” food such as ginger to generate more heat for the eggs.

With the artist’s only egg-free moments taken up by meals, there will be no time for toilet breaks – a box beneath his chair will allow him...