Emmanuelle Antille

Since 1996, the Swiss artist Emmanuelle Antille created films, video installations and photographs exploring men and women relationships inside specific communities, the role of women, her codes and rituals in the society through very personal narratives. Often at the boundary of dream and reality, her works bring the viewers deep into the very emotional and intimate lives of her characters. The scene of nature and urban landscapes operate as a mirror, reflecting the dreams and the psychology of the shown characters. Woods, caves, fields and buildings work as a surrounding, which makes up an architecture of the mind, sheltering the character’s intimacy. Personal rituals, codes and languages get expressed by bodies, their habits and the way they act, often underlined by musical elements. Using repetition, Antille creates a gap, which focus the unremarked details of the characters specifity. Often, the recording of a moment appears like an excerpt of a diary. Eternal Lovers 2006, triptych, silk print on aluminum, each 94 x 66 x 0,3 cm The triptych shows the tattooed back of a man (left) and a woman (right), completed by the text “I got the poison, you got the remedy” (middle). The scene is a contemporary delineation of love and emotions, which outlasts pain and the acerb taste of death. This edition works as a classical print for the wall, as well as an object on the floor. A Place We Call Home 2006, DVD, 8 min. The film A Place We Call Home captures the intense and specific relationships between two women. The characters are defined by their actions and by their physical interaction with each other. Their gestures are accompanied by melodies, delineating what’s most intimate about them. The setting around the women looks urban and savaged at the same time: It is a place, which is almost entirely covered by plants and trees. This surrounding absorbs and reflects the rituals of these two women. A Place We Call Home is an attempt to create a territory for the beloved one, a no man’s land or a free land outside of the world.

Inner Streams I-XVIII 2006, 18 photographs, framed, each 70 x 50 cm This series of photographs is connected with the film A Place We Call Home. It works as a reflection and rethinking of the encounter of the (urban) landscape and the female body. The small format of the photographs emphasizes the intimate relationship between the image and the observer. For coming closer again to an academic way, Antille has chosen a classical presentation for these works.

Emmanuelle Antille
Inner Streams