Lorraine Féline creates films, 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 directs films that are portraits of people at work. Her films 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
2024
SAAL FREI # 30,
Produktionszentrum Tanz + Performance Stuttgart
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)
2024
Paris-Stuttgart, French Institute Stuttgart, Germany
Endeavours and Masterpieces. Trophies and Relics, Mucem, Marseille
2023
Tout cela forme un ensemble,
Hôtel de Ville de Paris, Oct. 14th-Nov. 12th
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
