Can you describe what drives you as an artist? What are your main sources of inspiration and influences?

My 'practice' consists of film, performance, installation and drawings. However, if I had to choose one medium, it would be film. Despite being obsessed with opera as an all-encompassing art form, I see film as the ideal gesamtkunstwerk. Film has so many different aspects: direction, set, script, music and visuals. Collaboration is central to film, it is a collective enterprise. I see that collectivity as the core of my work, although within contemporary art that is not at all obvious. In addition, as a visual artist, I can add a new layer to cinematic work by using installations. I make film in the broadest sense of the word.

‍

In terms of inspiration, there are a huge number of subjects that influence my work. To keep the list concise, they are literature, television, childhood, anthropology, feminist theories and actions and street life.

‍

Could you give a brief description of the work you created for the 57th Venice Biennale?

Grotta Profunda was developed in two stages. The film was shot at three locations in the French Pyrenees in 2011. For the installation in Venice, six years later, I got the idea to literally 'embody' the film. The audience is inside a belly, and can lie on a liver, heart or placenta. The spectator enters through a giant hand. The hand is an icon of the human, the sacred, but also of technology and self-reflection. It is man's tool for expressing himself for example in the first cave drawings. Images of hands are also reflected in the film. The question was which hand I wanted to depict. At first I thought about using my own hand, a female hand. However, when I started Googling human hands my eye fell on the hand of Lucy, the ape and first proto-man, who in some way is the first female celebrity. I blew up the hand to a huge size until it reached King Kong proportions so that Bernadette (the main character in the film) became so small that she would fit in the palm. Then I finished it in a kind of psychedelic fleshy style.

How does this work relate to Christine Macel's general curatorial theme for Viva Arte Viva?

I didn't discuss her ideas with Christine beforehand. She left me free to do whatever I wanted and I had absolutely no idea that the result would be presented in the Dionysian Pavilion. And that worked really well for me.

‍

What did participating in the Venice Biennale 2017 bring you? Did it result in new projects, works, activities or ideas?

I see my participation in the Venice Biennale as a gift because it has given me a lot of confidence. It has definitely changed my relationship with my own work and needs. I find it hard to say which new projects and works it has given me, it is perhaps too early for that just yet.

Published on 22 November 2017.