Pool 1: Art & Body Studies (gLV)

In this module, we will explore practices around performativity, ritual and
transformation in its various applications through the prism of film works, performance art, collaborative practices, gender studies and anthropology. Students will be invited to create immersive worlds, stories, representations, images, and collective dynamics based on topographical and historical research. It's a methodology that delves into the stories and spirits of a place (whether near or far, fictional, or real), a theme, a character, a word or a ritual. It’s an attentive practice of listening and encountering by recontextualising it from a personal perspective. This process can unfold in different media, formats, and forms - in drawings, sculptural or visual works, films, performances, etc.

We will discuss how enquiry and research can shape a methodology for developing a project. We will explore how a historical and topographical approach can lead to experiences that are very different from the ‘display’ of history that is typical of archival and research exhibitions, and how it can also lead to a “mise en délire” (loose translation: “putting into delirium”), to the creation of a universe, an object, an experience.

We will dive into different expanded forms of narratives, including performance, multimedia installation, poetry, music as “unwritten” body studies such as David and Albert Maysles’ documentary Gray Gardens, The Cramps’ Live At Napa State Mental Hospital, Frederick Wiseman’s Titicut Follies, Kalup Linzy’s Keys to Our Heart, Shana Moulton and keyon gaskin’s practice.


About the lecturer:

Pauline Curnier Jardin (b. 1980, Marseille, France) is an artist working across installation, performance, film, and drawing. Her cinematic installations create unorthodox universes and tell stories, thus proposing alternative narratives. She is the winner of the 2019 Preis der Nationalgalerie, the 2021 Villa Romana Prize, and recipient of the 2019-2020 Villa Medici fellowship in Rome. Her work was included or commissioned most recently in: Kiasma, Helsinki (2024), MACRO, Rome (2024), Centraal Museum, Utrecht (2023), Kunsthaus Pasquart, Bienne and Kunsthalle, Winterthur (2023), CRAC Occitanie, Sète (2022); FRAC Corsica (2022); Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Berlin (2022).