WE HAVE DECIDED NOT TO DIE
Louise Siffert
In 2023, Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels is supporting the Ménagerie de verre for the presentation of WE HAVE DECIDED NOT TO DIE by Louise Siffert, as part of Les Inaccoutumés Festival 2023.
WE HAVE DECIDED NOT TO DIE is a film and musical show that explores bodies in their relationship with architecture. It is inspired by the archives of the Reversible Destiny Healing Fun House architectural project, a queer eco-community designed by artists, poets and architects Madeline Gins and Shusaku Arakawa. In line with her previous works, Louise Siffert transforms these archives into objects in a playful, poetic and more approachable manner, thus creating a bright scenic space, rich in textures and colors. In this aesthetically appealing setting, conducive to unique expressions, Louise revives the artistic and political objectives of the Gins-Arakawa duo, who designed unconventional structures capable of liberating bodies from their normative or institutional constraints or processes of idealization, perhaps liberating them to defy death.
Photo: © Louise Siffert
About the Artist
Louise Siffert
Louise Siffert is a self-taught set designer and alumna of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts de Paris. Through theatrical and burlesque settings, her performances assemble and raise questions on current topics such as the maddening corporate world, the pursuit of well-being, familiar places… Anchoring her work in scientific and sociological thinking (queer theory, gender studies, de-colonization studies, etc.) she creates characters with exacerbated personalities, overexploiting the linguistic and behavioral codes assigned to them. Among other venues, her work has been shown in the collections of Centre Nationale des Arts Plastique (CNAP) and Centre for Contemporary Visual Arts (CAPC) at Bordeaux.
Photo: © Louise Siffert
