Strange Sisters
Exhibition by Rachael Woodson
November 4th - 17th
Atelier 11 Cité Falguière, 75015 Paris, France
open during events or by appointment (subject to availability)
Join us for an exhibition by our returning resident, Rachael Woodson, a photographic artist who grew up in the United States and is based in Paris. Her work explores the subjective side of photography, inviting the viewer to relate to time-based media in an intimate and visceral way. The vast collection of photographs she has been making of her family for over two decades is a source from which she draws to converge with new investigations, often inspired by figures from the history of art and literature.
In her latest work, started during her L'AiR Arts residency at Atelier 11 back in December 2021, she investigates associations between photographs of her late sister and the expressionist verse of Austrian poet Georg Trakl. The project was exhibited in the group exhibition Genau Jetzt! in Innsbruck, Austria this past spring and will now be presented as a solo show at Atelier 11 in Paris.
November 4th - 17th
Atelier 11 Cité Falguière, 75015 Paris, France
open during events or by appointment (subject to availability)
Join us for an exhibition by our returning resident, Rachael Woodson, a photographic artist who grew up in the United States and is based in Paris. Her work explores the subjective side of photography, inviting the viewer to relate to time-based media in an intimate and visceral way. The vast collection of photographs she has been making of her family for over two decades is a source from which she draws to converge with new investigations, often inspired by figures from the history of art and literature.
In her latest work, started during her L'AiR Arts residency at Atelier 11 back in December 2021, she investigates associations between photographs of her late sister and the expressionist verse of Austrian poet Georg Trakl. The project was exhibited in the group exhibition Genau Jetzt! in Innsbruck, Austria this past spring and will now be presented as a solo show at Atelier 11 in Paris.
- Opening: Saturday, November 4th, 16h - 20h
- Reading: Saturday, November 11th, 18h - 20h (Reading of original texts by Axelle Cassini, Dona Eva Goroshevsky, and Soli Jeon)
- Seminar: Thursday, November 16th, 17h - 19h at L'École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Paris (petit auditorium des mûriers). On the notion of sisterhood, in dialogue with Doriane Molay and Christian Joschke
Pour plus d'informations en français et soutenir notre projet culturel
Shape-shifting from sibling to nun to ghost to mirror, the sister figure reoccurs throughout Austrian poet Georg Trakl’s literary output, which was cut short when he died at the outbreak of World War I. I began reading his poems while working with photographs of my sister several years after her death. I was gathering portraits we'd made together when I first started using a camera. During a residency at l'Atelier 11, I took a close look at these photographs and made observations about sibling dynamics, time passing, and the color of light at the end of the day. All recurring themes in Georg Trakl’s writing.
These associations between languages, images, histories, and sisters were materialized in the form of photo-text works. A heterogeneous selection of my negatives, including photographed documents on Georg Trakl and portraits of my sister, was set in motion in the darkroom on sheets of light-sensitive paper. Photographically rendered colors suggestive of dusk unfold from crimson hues to deep purples and blues. The short film Blue hour considers Georg Trakl’s life and work in the historical context of his time as well as from a contemporary perspective with a series of readings by students and artists living in Austria today.
Rachael Woodson, 2023
The exhibition will also be open on Tuesday, November 7th, from 18h to 20h, during the Salt of the Earth book signing and artist talk with L'AiR Arts returning resident Barbara Boissevain.
Image: Blue hour, video, 9 min, 2023