Gäelle Choisne (1985, FR) lives and works in Paris.
Sensitive to contemporary issues, Gaëlle Choisne’s practice considers the complexity of the world, its political and cultural disorder, whether it be the over-exploitation of nature, its resources, or the vestiges of colonial history, where Creole esoteric traditions, myths and popular cultures mingle.
Her projects are conceived as ecosystems of sharing and collaboration, pockets of «resistance» where new possibilities are created, notably with the «Temple of Love» project. Initiated from Roland Barthes’ original essay on love, «Fragments d’un discours amoureux» (1977), Gaëlle Choisne adds a political dimension to the concept of love by paying homage to invisible bodies, minority and fragile souls, and dispossessed hearts. «Temple of love » is an evolutionary project defining itself through its modes of appearance and genesis according to its invitations and its location.
The works/installations of Gaëlle Choisne have been exhibited in many institutions: (Vitry-sur-Seine), Centrale Powerhouse (Montreal), CAFA Museum (Beijing), Pera Museum (Istanbul), MAM - Musée d’art moderne de Paris, Musée Fabre (Montpellier), Zacheta Gallery (Warsaw), The Mistake Room (Los Angeles), Bétonsalon (Paris), Gr_und project space (Berlin), MAMO - Centre d’art de la Cité radieuse de Marseille, La Villette x Pompidou (Paris), Centre d’art contemporain La Halle des bouchers (Vienne), Musée archéologique Henri-Prade (Lattes), Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon etc.
She has also participated in several biennials and triennials: 15th Gwandju Biennial (2024), 3rd Toronto Biennial of Art (2024), 5th New Museum Triennial (2021), 11th International Biennial of Contemporary Art (GIBCA), 13th International Biennial of Lyon (2015), 12th Havana Biennial (2015), Sharjah Biennial 13 (2017) and 14th Curitiba Biennial (2017).
She has been part of many residency programs in France and internationally such as “Meeting Points collaboration” with CCA -Campus Caraïbéen des Arts (Martinique), Bethanian-KW (Berlin), the Rijksakademie (Amsterdam), Atelier Van Lieshout (Rotterdam), the Cité Internationale des Arts de Paris and OPTICA & Art3 Valence (Montreal).
In 2024, Gaëlle Choisne won the Marcel Duchamp Prize and, in 2021, the AWARE Prize. In 2019, she is nominated for the Ricard Foundation Prize and the Sam Art Project.
Gaëlle Choisne is represented by the gallery Air de Paris, Romainville (FR).
Edouard Glissant writes “The first darkness came from being torn away from the everyday country, from the patron gods, from the tutelary community”, and in this sense, Gaëlle Choisne’s thaumaturgic touch serves to re-establish an order, to heal a wound, to reconstitute the broken balance between us and the planet. Born in Northern France, to a Haitian mother and a Breton father, her autobiography bears the indelible marks of colonialism that remain in certain aspects of her artistic production and that see Haiti as a microcosm generating energetic reflections in the rest of the world.
Her modus operandi starts from a physical and spiritual relationship with materials and the use of various media: from sculpture, to videos made from found footage, to installations that build an abacus of linguistic hybridities in the complexity of a culture that combines vernacular elements with those of globalisation.
An inquisitive traveller, she builds, with objects found by chance, instruments useful for the creation of contexts poised between the wonder of the miracu- lous and the terror of the sublime; her work is interspersed with collections of rediscovered things, some of which have been preserved for many years, such as talismans, amulets, playing cards, or fetishes that take on curative functions. These collections also convey the artist’s interest in esotericism and spirituality. The exhibition, curated by Massimiliano Scuderi, is built from groups of new works, the result of a new creative experimentation, made with a total hetero- geneity of materials: from cement, to cardboard, to metals, to flowers such as the helicrisium, commonly called immortal flower in French-speaking countries. This metaphor urges us to understand the relationship between us and the soul of the world through an inexhaustible energy to which we all, in various ways, contribute. The path built inside the A SUD gallery constitutes an unrepeatable, spiritual, and multi-sensorial experience.