Born in 1981 in Marseille, France.
Lives and works in Paris.

Lorraine Féline creates videos, performances, drawings and paintings.

Her work is observational: she observes, with a minimum of intervention, gestures and bodies in movement, captured on the spot. She draws and photographs her surroundings, then paints snapshots of everyday life.

She also produces and directs videos that are portraits of people at work. Her videos are short-format, independently produced and shot in small teams, so that she can immerse herself in the site, as close as possible to the people being filmed.

Education
École supérieure des arts décoratifs
de Strasbourg
Hochschule für Künste Bremen, Allemagne
École d’arts de Rueil-Malmaison

 
Grants / Residencies

2022

Grant 1% Marché de l’art
Ville de Paris

2021

Kunststiftung, Stuttgart, Allemagne
CEAAC International Residency Program

2017

Maison des arts, centre d’art
contemporain, Malakoff

2014

Tara Expeditions, Mediterranean Sea
(Sardegna-Albania-Greece)

2013

StudioLab, Ménagerie de Verre, Paris

2012

Suddenly Residencies,
Beauchery-Saint-Martin

 
Festivals / projections

2021

Festival Transversales
Université Rennes 2, Rennes
Nuit Blanche, Marathon vidéo,
cur. Randa Maroufi & CACC Chanot

2019

CCCOD, Tours
Cinéma Le Clair, Thiviers

2018

Screen Dance Festival, Stockholm

2017

London International Documentary
Festival, The Archivist, Londres

2016

San Francisco Dance Film Festival,
compétition internationale, USA
Kyotographie, Rohm Theater, Kyoto

2014

Filmer le travail Festival, International competition, Poitiers

2013

Cinéma Appolo, carte blanche
to Nicolas Feodoroff / CPIF,
Pontault-Combault

Exhibitions (sélection)

2023

Tout cela forme un ensemble,
Hôtel de Ville de Paris, Oct. 14th-Nov. 12th

Exhibition, French Institute Stuttgart, Allemagne

2022

La Danse au travail,
International Project Room, CEAAC, Strasbourg

2021

65th Salon de Montrouge,
Beffroi de Montrouge

2019

L’Enfer du Nord, HAUS, Nantes

2018

Il va y avoir du sport !, maison des arts, centre d’art contemporain, Malakoff

2017

Exposition des 20 ans, maison des arts, centre d’art contemporain, Malakoff
Tara, un voyage en Méditerranée, agnès b. gallery, Marseille

2015

Tara, un voyage en Méditerranée, galerie du jour agnès b., Paris
Odradek, cur. Mikaela Assolent et Flora Katz, Instants Chavirés, Montreuil

2013

Atelier des testeurs, cur. Christophe Kihm, B. & A. Dezoteux, Chalet Society, Paris
La Sylphide, performance, Studio de danse, Théâtre de L’Onde, Vélizy-Villacoublay
Le Ballet mécanique, Micro-Onde – Centre d’art de L’Onde, Vélizy-Villacoublay

2012

Chacun de nous était plusieurs, Le Commissariat, Treize, Paris
Perforama, performance, Beauchery-St Martin
Rob Pruitt’s Flea Market, cur. Rob Pruitt, Monnaie de Paris, Paris
BYOB, Palais de Tokyo, cur. Rebecca Lamarche Vadel, Paris

 
Public Collection
Voorlinden Museum, Wasenaar, Pays-Bas
FRAC Alsace, Sélestat, France
agnès b. Collection
Ville de Montrouge, France

The Labour of Living

Does labour organise our lives to the extent that our so-called free time is also subjected to production rates and goals? Lorraine Féline’s videos exude a melancholy quality, as well as empathy for the bodies trapped in the division of labour. This partition is all the more obvious when she draws attention to the artificial demarcation between professionals and amateurs. Lorraine Féline seems to have reached this intuition through dance. She likens choreographic ges­tures to everyday motions – thus suggesting the principles of New York’s postmodern dance movement – as the dancers of her piece Blues Dance progress across the rooftop terrace of the Malakoff conservatory. Conversely, she asked a ballet dancer to perform “La Sylphide” – one of the first ballets to use pointe technique, heralding the dawn of romanticism – while wearing Moon Boots. What is the price to pay for our idealisation of lightness? To construct this ethereal vision, instruments of torture are necessary, not only for the dancers, but for the emigrant workers who make the shoes in London as well, whose damaged hands and assembly-line labour Féline films in Le Ballet mécanique. Sometimes, torture consists in standing still, like the building supervisors con­scious of their “imposture” (Les Gardiens).
Whether she draws her inspiration from traffic officers or from conductors, at the heart of her work there is always the fabrication of codified gestures, like the tireless tasks necessary to stay on course she captures onboard a sailing boat (À bord). Is it possible to regain control over the course of one’s life? Lorraine Féline films an ex-“Claudette”– one of the dancers of the 1970s French pop star Claude François – recounting how she managed to free herself from a life in the background and reclaim her story.

By Pedro Morais
Text published in Salon de Montrouge Catalogue 2021