Les Fumées – Carnet d’un procès pour génocide, Rwanda 1994-France 2018, 618 pages, Creaphis . June 2023. To order
THE SMOKES
DIARIES OF THE RWANDA GENOCIDE TRIAL
1994-FRANCE 2018
TEXT BY HÉLÈNE DUMAS
In 2018, the artist Natacha Nisic attended the appeal trial in France
of the two people responsible for the Tutsi genocide, Tito Barahira and
and Octavien Ngenzi, in the commune of Kabarondo, Rwanda.
She drew and took notes during the sessions, capturing the exchanges,
moods, postures, behaviour, tensions and emotions, and she has
without any claim to exhaustiveness or objectivity,
in an operative incompleteness. As we go through these written images
we are in turn captured. This process is crucial for what it
issues of history, justice and memory.
The historian Hélène Dumas, also present at the trial and an expert witness
as an expert witness, provides us with the keys to understanding the
trial in an introductory text. Outside the theatre of the
court of assizes, her own notes and the sources from the recordings
show us a different path. The notebooks, which seem to have remained
in the courtroom, keep the memory alive.
The continuous writing contained in these notebooks forms a work of art.
This book falls somewhere between the artist’s book and the scientific book, and
aesthetic interpretation and a scientific approach to the trial.
scientific approach to this trial. It is also a powerful historical document
document: it is a book about genocide, about a genocide trial, but it is also
genocide, but it is also part of a reflection on genocide trials in general.
genocide in general. Through the artist’s own subjectivity,
and Hélène Dumas’s commitment as a historian, this book touches
our sensibilities and makes us question ourselves: we have the keys to reading
to read this genocide, which is part of the overall history of the French nation and the world.
OSORESAN (Mount of Fear) – Autour de la préservation du vivant. Projection Festival Densités, 9th June 2023 . Meuse Grand Est
OSORESAN, Natacha Nisic & Daimaru Ken
3 channels installation, stereo sound, 17’, 2018
Festival for art and alternative images, Top Museum, Tokyo, feb. 2018
The Itako are women who train to become spiritual mediums in Northeast region of Japan and to evoke departed spirits for the living seeking to communicate with the dead. Most of them have visual disabilities and learn language and rites to describe a rich spiritual world entirely through oral communication. The installation weaves the threads of their memories and the Great Catastrophy of March 2011
TRIENNALE d’Art Contemporain CHALEUR HUMAINE, Frac Grand large, Dunkerque, curated by Anna Colin and Camille Richert
C H A L E U R H U M A I N E
C O N S C I E N C E S É N E R G É T I Q U E S
1 0 J U N E 2 0 2 3 T O 1 4 J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 4
Chaleur humaine, the second Art & Industry Triennial, will unfold over the
second half of 2023 in Dunkirk and throughout the Hauts-de-France region.
This year’s event will explore the issue of energy.
To tackle this far-reaching topic, Triennial initiators and organizers the
Frac Grand Large and the LAAC—collectively Le Pôle Art Contemporain de
Dunkerque—have invited two independent exhibition curators: Anna Colin and
Camille Richert, assisted by Henriette Gillerot. Their curatorial brief focuses on
observing how energy challenges arising since the mid-1970s have impacted art,
design and architecture, and, conversely, how these fields have shaped challenges,
reflections and debates linked to energy, the environment and the planet.
The wide ranging works on display will invite onlookers to discover practices
linked to excess energy consumption; access to natural resources; issues
related to sustainability and environmental responsibility; the transformation
of landscapes and people’s relationships with their visible and perceptible
surroundings; the ongoing tug-of-war between forces and fatigue in the living
world; and the flow of data and energy.
TOO MUCH magazine, Magazine of Romantic Geography, The sacred, Tokyo, Article :After the Storm, One Voice Remains, p164.
Hans und Lea Grundig preis – for The Crown Letter – Kunst als Widerspruch, at the Rosa Luxembourg Stftung, Berlin. Watch the video
Von hier aus, Acht künstlerische Positionen aus den Residenzen 2019–2022, Rolff Stiftung, Burggladbach, Germany, 9-12 September 2022
Pravo Ljudski Film Festival, Sarajevo – Projection of Saint-Désir – l’Exil, 9’15”, 17-22 September 2022
Rencontres Internationales Paris Berlin – Projection of Saint-Désir – l’Exil, 9’15” – Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles, Paris
The Crown Letter- festival KG+, Institut Français de Kyoto, Japan. 9 April to 8 May 2022
Contribution to the book ” Ecrans motiles”, by Sylvain Campeau, Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal. Trailer.
Contribution to the book “Annette Becker, un engagement”, Créaphis publisher
Winner of the Lea und Hans Grundig Prize 2021
Natacha Nisic could convince in the category art education with the collaborative Online-Project „The Crown Letter“, which has presented and connected artists from over the world during the Corona-Pandemie.
Von Leben in industrielandschaften II, Leopold Hoesch Museum, Düren, Germany, 12th December to 13th March 2022
The structural change in view
“Vom Leben in Industrielandschaften – Den Strukturwandel im Blick” is the second part of an exhibition project that began in fall/winter 2019/2020 with the exhibition “Vom Leben in Industrielandschaften – Eine fotografische Bestandsaufnahme” (A photographic stocktaking). This presentation was about approaching the manifestations of industrially shaped landscapes by means of the indexical and conceptual qualities of photography.
With: Bernd und Hilla Becher, Prunella Clough, Alice Creischer, Dieter Dressler, Günther Friedrich, Adolf Erbslöh, Olaf Karnik und Volker Zander, Aglaia Konrad, Carl Lohse, Antje Majewski, Wolfgang Mattheuer, Stephan Mörsch, Natacha Nisic, Silke Schatz, Carl Schütz, Wilhelm Schürmann, Franz W. Seiwert, Wilhelm Überrück, Karl Zerbe a.o.
The exhibition is a cooperation with the Brandenburg State Museum of Modern Art | Dieselkraftwerk Cottbus.
Quinzaine Photographique Nantaise, Histoire (s), 22th October to 22th November 2021
Presentation of the film Rather Die than Die, Atelier, Nantes.
Le rayon Vert – Hôtel Le belvédère, Cerbère, France, from 29th September to 30th November 2021
The Crown Letter – Biennal Sur – MAPI- Monte video
The Crown Letter – Biennal Sur – Centro Cultural- Cordoba, from 30 october to 30 december 2021
Environmental Awareness – Chapter 4: The Crown Letter
More than ever before, the pandemic crisis has brought to the fore the interdependence between human societies and the environment. Several voices reflected on this unexpected and unprecedented experience for humankind, giving rise to different actions. Among them is The Crown Letter, a work in progress presented as a collective diary of the diverse experiences in the life of the artists that make up this project, whose strong gender imprint has become one of its identity marks. The Crown Letter began in April 2020, at the onset of the Covid crisis, a time of widespread astonishment and despondency. French artist Natacha was convinced that there was an urgent need to come up with a global, collective response. Art could not be absent in the face of a catastrophe; it had to breathe and spread its oxygen in times of asphyxia. With neither resources nor institutional support, Natacha Nisic envisaged a website and immediately contacted artist friends from different countries and generations. A collective was soon organized with no leader or editorial line, driven by a common need that barely needs to be explained. While confinement affected everyone, it was clear to us all that it had a heavier impact on women, including artists. More than ever, they wanted to work and expose themselves in every sense to scrutiny and criticism. Through The Crown Letter they created a space to express and share what each of them and all of us were going through. They invented an “us” with open borders. Collectively, individualities were not blurred, but rather supported each other. As months went by, the dialogue became deeper and collective works were produced. The Crown Letter is presented as an online exhibition whose works, videos, photos, sculptures, poetry and prose are launched every week. It is a polyphonic manifesto with a tuning fork of the tempest, which over the weeks has become the intimate and collective diary of the pandemic from Mumbaï to Buenos Aires, Glasgow, London, Bucharest, Moscow, Paris…
The Crown Letter is a modest yet tenacious undertaking. It has made it past its first birthday and still continues. It will undoubtedly live on beyond the circumstances that brought it into existence.
The Crown Letter – Fondation Fiminco presented by Photodays, from 15th October to 27 november 2021
The Fondation Fiminco and Photo Days present The Crown Letter, an international collective of women artists, established by the French artist Natasha Nisic in April 2020, as an answer to the first wave of the Covid pandemic. Natasha Nisic started the project in order to help the production and diffusion of arts from women. As well as encourage exchanges, talks and solidarity, in a moment of their lives where their networks and visibility of their works were profoundly disturbed.Presented whitin the Photo Days exposition, it tries to account for the wealth of a project mixing generations of artists from various cultures through mediums as plurals as photography, drawings, txts, sounds, videos or performances.
With : SE Barnet, Maithili Bavkar, Anne Brunswic, Adriana Bustos, Claire Chevrier, Michelle Deignan, Liza Dimbleby, Sudha Padmaja Francis, Dettie Flynn, Claire-Jeanne Jézéquel, Kyoko Kasuya, Saviya Lopes, Ruth Maclennan, Ana Mendes, Maricarmen Merino, Aurelia Mihai, Manuela Morgaine, Natacha Nisic, Catherine Radosa, Luise Schröder, Esther Shalev-Gerz, Katja Stuke, Catalina Swinburn, Ivana Vollaro, Emma Woffenden.
Résister, reprendre – Les Chantiers de Marie-José Mondzain – La Commune, Théâtre d’Aubervilliers, from 25th to 26th September
Blackmail- Faire chanter – 10′ – “Faire chanter” is addressed to all spectators caught in the clutches of an economic machine whose artifices of representation use lures, virtual realities, and enchantments.this introduction to a tragi-comic opera in the process of being created is written as a tribute to Marie José Mondzain, a material for thinking about our economy of the senses and images.I owe to Marie José moments of sharing of an insane intensity, the color of which I would like to rediscover again, together, at La Commun.
L’Hyperfestival, Paris : Photodays presents The Crown Letter in two public spaces in the center of Paris:
Garden of the Tour Saint-Jacques, Paris 1, from August 1st to August 22nd
Garden Villemin, canal Saint-Martin, Paris 10, from August 1st to August 22nd
Loneliness 2, Basel Center, Videocity
12:00 min, no sound
“What could be hiding behind these closed eyes? Vivid or peaceful dreams, images, colours, sounds… Or perhaps silence, a peaceful thoughtlessness, a removal from the world.
These moments of escape from the tumult of everyday life were filmed by Natacha Nisic in the Tokyo underground back in 2004. The Japanese are known for their frantic pace of work, their strict self-control, letting their personalities give way to efficiency and devotion to a company. Curator Andrea Domesle. To read more
Centre Pompidou, Muesum of Contempory art, collections. Catalogue de Gestes.
Katalog der unbesungenen Gesten – Kolumne “Bild des Woche” – FAZ
von Katja Petrowskaja
“In unserer maskierten Zeit ist die Gestik intensiver geworden. Sie muss Sinn und Ausdruck der Mimik übernehmen. Aber auch die Hände halten soziale Askese: Sie dürfen andere nicht berühren. Die Künstlerin Natacha Nisic huldigt ihnen.”
To read more