Émotions Terranaissantes

A solo exhibition by Elise Guillaume

Espace Croisé, Centre d’Art Contemporain, Oct - Dec 2023, Roubaix

Through a series of audiovisual and photographic works, belgian artist Elise Guillaume traces links between psychological states and environmental change. She delves into the fluidity between self and other, inside and outside, the intimate and the collective. The exhibition is the result of research conducted between the North Sea and the Arctic and is presented as an immersive installation. At the centre of the room an 8 metre long lightbox table displays a series of analogue photographs depicting visceral textures of ice and water. These black and white photographs, developed by the artist using Arctic seaweed based developer, are carefully placed between seaweed floating in a viscous liquid and the photo negatives. Halfway between the artist's studio and a laboratory, the installation transports visitors into a landscape that questions traditional photographic development.

Behind the table, Guillaume's latest film, Eventual Horizon, is projected on a large screen. Shot in the Arctic, Eventual Horizon weaves together the artist's experiences of insomnia, grief and hope - as the ice melts, the body dissolves, the night lingers and the sun burns. On a screen in a more intimate space, Where I Learn to Breathe extends this moment of (re)connection with our senses. The fluidity of water and the body intertwine as the artist takes us on a journey towards healing through a symbiosis with nature. The soundscapes of these two films were created using a variety of field recordings, some using hydrophones.

The title of the exhibition, borrowed from the concept of the philosopher Glenn Albrecht (Terranascient Emotions), brings together the words Terra and ranascient to evoke the emotions we feel when confronted with environmental change. Émotions Terranaissantes reveals the transformative power of these emotional states, vectors of a renewed relationship with nature.