Gaëlle Choisne

Critical text

Gaëlle Choisne (b. 1985, Cherbourg) works with video, painting, photography and assemblage to reconcile past and present, memory and future. With a Haitian mother and a Breton father, the artist reflects on themes of identity like history, memory, colonization, exoticization, feminism and gender identity. Overlaying different planes of time and relying on heterogeneous materials, Choisne incorporates objects that evoke both Haitian practices and traditions or references to western culture: the archival materials establish a dialogue with new productions, while vestiges of colonialism become tools with which to reformulate a Euro-centric imaginary, and to rewrite the history of the oppressed. Artificial and natural coexist in a fragile balance that involves the relationship between human beings and the environment, while the use of the objet trouvé reveals the intimist side of her practice, charged with references to animism. Spirituality, nature and history merge in a poetical practice in which individual and collective reach the point of coinciding. At Present Future, Choisne presents two works belonging to Les mondes subtiles, a series that brings together natural subjects and a humanity free of stereotypes and any possible categorization.

Text by Ilaria Gianni