The idea for the pro­ject Chants / Champs de Guérison aro­se from the dia­lo­gue bet­ween artists Lore Stessel, Laurie Dall’Ava and Sophie Bellot. The artists explo­re the con­cepts of well-being and hea­ling in our con­tem­po­ra­ry soci­e­ty. They sha­re the con­vic­ti­on that the advan­cing secu­la­ri­za­ti­on of the West often igno­res a per­son’s yearning for (ritu­al) con­nec­ti­on. Healing is some­thing one has to do here in the first instan­ce alo­ne, in a hos­pi­tal, in one’s own home, in bed. Rest, medi­ca­ti­on and qua­ran­ti­ne are key con­cepts; fate is somehow in your own hands. However, all over the world the­re are cul­tu­res that con­si­der coming together, phy­si­cal con­tact and ritu­als as an essen­ti­al ele­ment of the reco­ve­ry pro­cess. Lore, Laurie and Sophie each in their own way immer­sed them­sel­ves in dif­fe­rent types of the­se ​‘sup­port sys­tems’. During their resi­d­en­cy in Off the, Grid the three artists sha­red ide­as that resul­ted in the exhi­bi­ti­on Chants / Champs de Guérison, a poe­tic account of this research. Photography forms a com­mon point of depar­tu­re, but the artists explo­re various media such as glass, paper and tex­ti­les throug­hout the exhi­bi­ti­on. The dif­fe­rent docu­ments come from com­ple­te­ly dif­fe­rent con­texts, but reso­na­te in their ambi­ti­on to learn from com­mu­ni­ties that care for each other. The artists view the exhi­bi­ti­on as a visu­al hymn that invi­tes visi­tors to a moment of connection.

Laurie Dall’Ava

Laurie Dall’Ava explo­res the con­scious­ness and the living. Passionate about anthro­po­lo­gy and bio­lo­gy, she is inte­rested among others in chlo­ro­p­hyll and bees, but also in the cul­tu­res of the invi­si­ble as well as in the dif­fe­rent forms of shamanism.

Sophie Bellot: inves­ti­ga­tes new ways of inha­bi­ting the earth and using it, con­si­de­ring it, wor­king it. She obser­ves the ​‘land’ and its inha­bi­tants over a long peri­od of time, docu­men­ting micro­sco­pic and macro­sco­pic cycles, pat­terns and chan­ges. She car­ries out artis­tic expe­ri­ments, that reve­al infor­ma­ti­on about the his­to­ry of the pla­ce or impact its trans­for­ma­ti­on in a non-intrusi­ve way.

Lore Stessel: Lore Stessel inves­ti­ga­tes the inter­fa­ce bet­ween pho­to­grap­hy, pain­ting and move­ment. Not only in the wor­king method but also as sub­ject, the phy­si­cal and the cor­po­re­al take an impor­tant posi­ti­on. The search for the human or ani­mal body – and espe­ci­al­ly the ten­si­on with the envi­ron­ment – is a recur­ring sub­ject in her practice.