Inventaire Langages | La Criée centre d'art contemporain

This monograph, thought in close connection with the issue of the performance archive and its possible activations, traces the work carried out over a decade by the transdisciplinary artist Violaine Lochu, anchored in the field of contemporary art, experimental music and sound poetry, with central pivot performance.

Considered as a book to perform, this book, whose contributors have always accompanied or accompanied the artist in his research, draws up a subjective inventory of the languages - voice, sound, textual, visual, graphic, stage... - it explores and links projects.
The texts of Vanessa Desclaux and Florian Gaité, the interviews with Nadine Hounkpatin, Bruno Latour, Nastassja Martin, Anne-Françoise Rouche, enlighten the recent developments and the adventure of this unique creative path. The book is also invested in the practice that made Violaine Lochu known; its purpose and materiality are « replayed » in a series of performances that accompany its publication. « Performing the book » is still a how to play and proliferate flows, fragments, images, sounds that draw the languages of Violaine Lochu, and year after year a work in perpetual renewal.

Bird, cyborg, cloud, healer, antenna, Priestess, alien drag, crab, grenade, mermaid, queer buffoon... The plural, mobile, abundant universe of the visual artist, vocalist Violaine Lochu (born 1987 in Laval) draws his of experiences and encounters initiated or experienced by the artist. Since entering the art world in 2012, Violaine Lochu continuously sought to push the limits of his research territory and its vocabulary. First and foremost and focused on the voice, his practice expanded, series of proposals and exhibitions, to other mediums - installation, video, drawing.

edited by

Vanessa Desclaux

art critic and curator

Christophe Hamery

graphic designer

Noëlig Le Roux

Curator

Violaine Lochu

Born in 1987, Violaine Lochu lives and works between Montreuil in France and Cotonou in Benin. She is a graduate of the École nationale supérieure d'art de Paris Cergy and holds a Master II in visual arts research (Université Rennes 2).
Violaine Lochu's work explores the voice as a vehicle for encounters and metamorphosis. During long periods of immersion in specific environments, she collects various sound and visual materials from which she creates performances, sound installations, videos and publications.
Her practice is transdisciplinary, evolving in the fields of visual arts, experimental music and sound poetry, creating bridges between contemporary and ancient worlds, scholarly and vernacular, drawing inspiration from encounters with human and non-human entities, as well as from readings in the humanities. Encounters and collaboration (with other musicians, choreographers, visual artists, researchers in the humanities, etc.) are at the heart of her approach.