Programme Paris
Mercredi 26 novembre 2025

This short film talks about the Gesamthof / A lesbian garden, an art-nature project in Antwerp between the walls of an old monastery. In this audiovisual time document, we follow a guided tour by Eline De Clercq, the driving force of the garden project. The garden provides an entry point to talk about diverse topics such as colonialism in botany, the ambiguity of naming, the social expectations of women and the search for a lesbian identity. This garden is inspired by the books of ecofeminists and other writers, like Donna Haraway, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Jamaica Kincaid, Virginia Woolf and many others. The collaboration between the two artists Anne and Eline started in the Gesamthof, where the two first met, and continues today in various gardens.

Anne Reijniers (1992, Belgium) is a filmmaker based in Antwerp. Her collaborative practice questions colonial history, the occupation of public space and the ethics of collaboration. Anne holds a Master's degree in Audiovisual Arts from LUCA School of Arts in Brussels and KASK in Ghent. Her collaborative films, made with Collectif Faire-Part, have been screened in several national and international film festivals and exhibitions. With the film Faire-part, she won several awards, including at the Montreal International Documentary Festival, the Congo International Film Festival, and the Brussels Art Film Festival. Eline De Clercq (1979, Belgium) in Antwerp I have a studio next to a monastery garden where I cared for the Gesamthof from 2019 to 2025. Trained as a painter I expand my practice in other mediums like gardening, film, writing, ceramics. I like to work in collaboration with other artists and often create community related events like the Homesick Tea Gathering. Several of my projects focus on antiracial and anti-misogynist topics, with extra care for intersectional realities. Since 2022 I work as an artistic researcher at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp.

WHEN ONE DOOR OPENS emerges as an exploration of the intricate dynamics between authorship, representation, and history. Drawing inspiration from the groundbreaking methodologies of Arthur Jafa and the evocative aesthetics of Christian Marclay. Eschewing from the conventional confines of mainstream cinema, the filmwork delves deep into the rich tapestry of found footage, excavating and appropriating the untold narratives embedded within race films predominantly from the period immediately after the pre-Code era. In this respect it presents itself as a counterpoint to established somewhat one-dimensional work of Marclay. Through a, seemingly circuitous, narrative lens, WHEN ONE DOOR OPENS challenges conventional notions of identity and belonging, inviting viewers to confront the complexities of historical representation. Each frame serves as a portal to a bygone era, where characters navigate through the architectural spaces of both literal and metaphorical significance. The film's exploration of movement within these spaces resonates with profound symbolism, illustrating the transformative power of cinematic storytelling. Ultimately, standing as a testament to the enduring allure of cinema and the implied spaces as a medium for capturing and reimagining the complexities of human experience.

EWA EFFIOM is a London-based Belgo-Nigerian architect, writer and producer. Image Culture, Futurism and Mythology are recurring themes in his work with a focus on their association to space. He was a member of the Architecture Foundation’s New Architecture Writers’ second cohort which culminated in a critically acclaimed public programme and has been published in the Architect’s Newspaper, Dwell, the AJ, ICON, Wallpaper, Frame, OnOffice, Architecture Aujourd'hui, the Modern House magazine, A Daily Dose and Ex Libris amongst others. His piece Architecture, Buildings and Conservation in MAJA was nominated for best piece in the 2022 Estonian Architecture Awards a year after he came second place in the Tallinn Architecture Biennale’s 2021 Curatorial Competition with a proposal entitled Adaptive Re-use. His film Eagle Mansions was premiered at the 2021 Urban Film Festival in Perth and screened at 2022 Melbourne Design Week, before he was awarded the 2022 How To Residency at the Canadian Centre for Architecture entitled “How Not To Be A Developer.” 2022 was also the year that his second film “Beck Road” premiered at the Open City festival before screening at the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale. He was a 2023 LINA Fellow and awarded both the Film Lab residency at the MAXXI Museum in Rome where he made “When One Door Opens” which screened at Demanio Marritimo-278 before being shown at restless architecture exhibition curated by Diller Scofidio and Renfro at the MAXXI Museum. He also took part in the Theatrum Mundi Staging Ground Residency with his collaborative exploration of infrastructural change in Paris in the aftermath of the Olympics. He later returned to LINA to give the State of Architecture Address in 2025 which was met with critical acclaim which was a plea for the archtiecture industry to return to imagination. Though he hasn’t been a lecturer at MA in Architecture + Urbanism at the Manchester School of Architecture since 2022, he is still a visiting critic at the Estonian Institute of Technology and London Metropolitan University.

Pwe?ra u?sog (2025). 19 min dir. Yana Osman, Anton Khamchishkin In 1945, in Paris, the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF) was founded. According to historian Francisca de Haan, it was “the largest and probably the most influential international women’s organization of the post–World War II era.” Today, assessments of the organization’s legacy remain contested. Some scholars, citing reports from the FBI and the House Un-American Activities Committee, describe WIDF as a communist attempt to manipulate women. Others view it as a movement advocating for women’s rights, and researchers like Elizabeth Armstrong note WIDF’s role in anti-colonial and anti-racist struggles led by women in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In 1987, during the Perestroika era, WIDF organized the World Congress of Women in Moscow, under the slogan: “Toward 2000 — Without Nuclear Weapons! For Peace, Equality, Development!” The congress brought together 2,800 women from 150 countries. Among them, there was the protagonist’s grandmother, an interpreter who collected words from global conversations that had no equivalents in other languages. Revisiting her notes, archival footage, and sites of official delegations, the protagonist is guided by these fragments to a question: what words can capture the present, when language itself slips away, dissolves, and borrowed slogans drown out one’s voice?

Yana Osman, Anton Khamchishkin (Afghanistan, Russia) — artists and filmmakers. Work with gaps in storytelling, filling in the unsaid and uncovering narratives suspended between real and imaginary, facts and speculation. Their films were selected at Hong Kong Film Festival, DOK Leipzig, Slamdance, Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin, as well as supported by CNC, Cité Internationale des Arts, Usage du Monde au 21ème siècle, Institut Français, among others.

Do you remember the scene in Killer of Sheep (1978) where the kids are playing on abandoned railroad tracks? The scene is set in the Watts neighborhood in California. Director Charles Burnett took the artist Lúcia Prancha to several filming locations from his works around Los Angeles.

Lúcia Prancha (1985, Lisboa) is an artist who lives and works in Barcelona. Lúcia graduated in Painting from FBAUL (2009, PT) and obtained her Masters in Arts from CalArts–California Institute of the Arts (2015, USA). Her work was exhibited at Pavilhão Branco, Museu da Cidade, Lisbon; 19 Crac de Montbéliard; Centro de Arte Oliva; Sesc-Pompeia, Sao Paulo; LACA – Los Angeles Contemporary Archives; Hordaland Kunstsenter, Bergen; Serralves Foundation, Porto; Galeria Dynamo, Porto; Galeria Leme, São Paulo; Berardo Museum and São Paulo Biennial. Her videos were screened at the Cinemateca Portuguesa; INTERSECCIÓN, Coruña; Curtas Vila do Conde; Rencontres Internationales Nouveau Cinéma et Art Contemporain de Paris and, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin. Currently, she is part of "El vértigo de las imágenes", XVIII Bienal Internacional de Fotografía–Fotonoviembre at TEA–Tenerife Espacio de las Artes and Centro de Fotografía Isla de Tenerife, ES. From September to November, she will be in artistic residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. https://luciaprancha.com/;

In 1998, two schoolgirls sent a letter to Iran's first-ever women’s newspaper. While they waited to be published, they considered making an impossible film. Using citations and image intervention, Razeh-del journeys through parallel histories of war on images of women.

Maryam Tafakory, née à Shiraz en Iran, réalise des films et des performances. Son travail a été présenté au MoMA, à Locarno, à l’IFFR et à l’ICA, entre autres. Elle a notamment reçu le prix du meilleur court métrage expérimental au 70e Festival international du film de Melbourne, le Gold Hugo Award au 58e Festival international de Chicago, le Tiger Short Award au 51e IFFR de Rotterdam et le Barbara Hammer Feminist Award au 60e AAFF.

“We dream of travelling through the universe… is the universe, however, not within us? We do not know the depths of our spirit. The mysterious path leads inwards. Eternity, with its worlds of past and future, is in us or nowhere. The outward world is the world of shadow; it throws its shadow into the realm of light. At present, it indeed appears so dark, lonely, formless inside; but how completely different it will seem to us when this eclipse has passed, and the body and shadow have moved away. We will enjoy more than ever, because our spirit has been deprived.” — Novalis, ‘Pollen’ (1798). Translated and adapted from the original German publication, with assistance from W. Hastie’s English translation in ‘Hymns and Thoughts on Religion’ (1888).

Louis Rizzo Naudi is a British-Maltese filmmaker. His practice explores the experience of the sublime and the constructed nature of visual perception, with his camera often focussed on natural phenomena, landscapes, and technology. He holds a B.A. in Film Studies from King’s College London, where he was awarded the Film Studies dissertation prize for his essay on the sublime in footage of the International Space Station, and an M.Sc. in Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology from the University of Oxford, where he researched how sublime experiences may lead to increased prosocial behaviours, such as generosity. His films have screened across Europe, including International Film Festival Rotterdam, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, the British Film Institute, and the Tate St. Ives, and have also been used as relaxation aids in hospitals for patients undergoing medical procedures.

Within the haunting cycle of coffin mass production, human labor contrasts with the never-ending factory stock of coffins. In light of computer-aided manufacturing and the excessive overexploitation of natural resources, Unsold Copies longs for a moment of rest from the assembly line, while mankind continually buries itself in the remnants of a material world.

Stefan Koutzev is a Bulgarian filmmaker working and living in Cologne. His work focuses on narrative storytelling born between screenwriting and documentary practices, as well as the production of experimental films and sound design. His short films including RESTBESTAND (2025), HAUSPAUSEN (2024) or SCHWÄRMEN (2020), have been screened at DOK Leipzig, Odense International Film Festival, Beijing International Short Film Festival, Stockholm International Film Festival or Rencontres Internationales Paris/ Berlin. In 2026, he's about to present the world premier of his feature debut WHY HASN’T EVERYTHING DISAPPEARED YET, a hybrid, multilingual exploration of belonging, origin and migration.

‘Tra’ est une ode au cinéaste italien Pier Paolo Pasolini. ‘Tra’ synthétise le récit de son film ‘Teorema’ (1968) en mettant en évidence ses moments interstitiels. L'acte de courir, qui apparaît tout au long du film, est isolé et utilisé pour exposer les courants sous-jacents du film.

John Di Stefano is an artist/filmmaker, writer, and curator whose work reconciles the personal with the social, the everyday with history through hybrid forms of documentary practices and the essayistic form. His work often deals with his immigrant past seen through a queer lens, including the feature-length 'You Are Here' (2009) which premiered at the Festival International du Documentaire (Marseille). His award-winning work has also been featured at the Videonale (Bonn), Whitechapel Gallery, Tensta Konsthall, Barcelona Museum of Modern Art, Para/Site (Hong Kong), and Anthology Film Archives. His critical writings appear in various international publications. He teaches at Concordia University (Montreal). Cathy Lee Crane is an experimental filmmaker whose work mines the historical archive to produce lyrical films of speculative history. She was a Guggenheim Fellow, and in 2015 her work enjoyed its first survey at the National Gallery of Art (Washington DC). Crane’s award-winning films –including 'Pasolini’s Last Words' (2012)– have screened at Viennale, Cinematheque Francais, BFI, and Arsenal/Berlin. Her interest in borders saw the release of 'Crossing Columbus' (2020) about the border town of Columbus, New Mexico which was supported by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Harun Farocki Institut in Berlin. She teaches at Ithaca College (New York).

A travers un plan séquence hypnotique nous sommes transportés au cœur d'une maison, où le noir et blanc négatif révèle un espace indéfini entre mémoire et sidération. Fluctuant sous le vernis social, le regard se métamorphose, la maison dévoile ses secrets, les murs eux-mêmes semblent souffler des récits oubliés et des vérités indicibles.

Claire Lance (born in 1987, France) is an artist who uses mediums closely related to human optics. Her projects explore cognition and the persistence of cultural images in perception through video, installation, and photography. Evolving over time, Lance's works often operate in a manner reminiscent of Rorschach tests, revealing what is generally invisible or described as intangible or non-objective. The global city, where scales and dimensions intersect in successive layers, creates virtual, intangible spaces accessible only to the eye. These indeterminate yet familiar places invoke the metaphor and persistence of images that we individually and culturally carry within us as viewers. Her works have been exhibited at the Ofr gallery in Paris, at the 39th FIFA in Montreal, Kurzfilmvoche Regesnburg, Germany, and have been featured multiple times in the British magazine Carpark. In 2023, she was invited by the CIRM (Centre International de Recherche Mathématiques) for a workshop titled 'Maths and Art: Common Creation'. She holds a master's degree in Practice and Theory of Contemporary Art from the Université Paris 8 Sorbonne. She has collaborated with various film directors as cinematographer on set, and commissioned works with press titles such as L’Obs, Trax, Technikart.

La nuit tombe sur la montagne. Une voiture solitaire serpente le long de la route. Au volant, quelqu'un fredonne une étrange berceuse

Anouk Chambaz (Renens, 1993) travaille avec l’image en mouvement, explorant les seuils entre les espaces, les rêves et les individus. Elle est diplômée en cinéma de l’ECAL (Lausanne) et en philosophie de La Sapienza (Rome). Elle a reçu le Prix Combat (vidéo) en 2022, ainsi que des mentions spéciales au Prix Francesco Fabbri en 2023 et au Festival international du film de Rio de Janeiro en 2024. En 2025, elle est finaliste du Talent Prize.

Nicky semble être en mission au volant de sa petite voiture. Les routes défilent mais les idées dans sa tête restent insondables et désespérées. Un repas, la découverte d'un fusil, des rencontres fortuites: le mystère reste entier.

Dans les années 90, il tourne une quinzaine de courts métrages, puis a été journaliste et critique de cinéma avant de réaliser son premier long métrage Les états nordiques en 2005. Son 4e long métrage, Carcasses (2009), est présenté à la Quinzaine des réalisateurs à Cannes pendant que Curling, remporte les honneurs au Festival de Locarno en 2010. Vic+Flo ont vu un ours (2013) a obtenu l'Ours d'argent de la Berlinale en Allemagne pour son innovation. Toujours à la Berlinale, il a présenté quatre longs métrages en Compétition officielle. Les films singuliers de Denis Côté ont été montrés dans des centaines de manifestations cinématographiques en plus de faire l'objet d’une quarantaine de rétrospectives à travers le monde.

A dog and a human share sleep in the twilight of a calm house. Suddenly, the shapes of reality start to blur, and slowly, dream and fantasy take over. In his latest work, Andro Eradze shapes a new vision of surrealism, where impeccable image composition and a stunning sound work strike directly at the subconscious, submerging the senses in an ocean of absolute beauty.

Andro Eradze (b. 1993, Tbilisi, Georgia) is an artist and filmmaker whose multidisciplinary practice investigates the intersection of presence, memory, and spectrality. Through photography, installation, video, and experimental cinema, Eradze explores the agency of non-human entities within landscapes that blur the boundaries between human and non-human experiences. His projects often evoke liminal spaces, exploring the unexpected actions and relations among objects, plants, and animals. He took part in several solo and group exhibitions and screenings in international institutions including MoMA PS1, New York; The 59th Venice Biennale, Venice; The New Museum, New York; WIELS Contemporary Art Center, Brussels; GAMeC, Bergamo; 22nd Biennial Sesc_Videobrasil, Sao Paulo; 14th Kaunas Biennial, Lithuania; Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles.

In a remote area of northern Spain, the wind has a name: Tramuntana. Tramuntana takes what it wants—clothes, trees, boats, and the people of the landscape who live with the endless threat of being carried away by its force. This film is a lyrical portrait of this furious wind, woven from the stories passed down by local villagers.

Martí Madaula is an artist and filmmaker based in Madrid. He holds a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona, a Master of Visual Arts from the LUCA School of Arts of Ghent (Belgium) and a Master of Fine Arts in Film, Video, New Media, and Animation from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2019, he received the Extraordinary Prize of Fine Arts (University of Barcelona). In 2021, he was awarded a prestigious “la Caixa” Foundation fellowship to pursue his studies in the United States. Madaula’s latest film, “Tramuntana,” had its World Premiere at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, as part of Doc Fortnight 2025, MoMA’s prestigious Festival of International Nonfiction Film and Media. His first film, “The Living Wardrobe,” had its World Premiere at the Opening Scenes section at Visions du Réel 2024, one of the most important documentary and nonfiction film festivals in the world. Madaula has participated in art residencies at prestigious institutions like Centre Pompidou in Paris or Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin. He has exhibited his work in international solo and group shows.

Misdirected Impulse shows deserted natural and park landscapes in long, static shots. Picturesque arrangements of trees and bushes unfold quietly, until the sudden appearance of a smoking light ruptures the calm. The following staccato of short shots, in which the light is directed equally at the camera and the viewer, is an attack on gaze and perspective, dissolving romanticized notions of nature.

* 1984, Leipzig Eginhartz Kanter studied Fine Arts, Cultural Studies and Photography at the University of Arts and Design Linz, the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and the E?cole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts in Lyon. In his artistic approach he questions the boundaries and conventions of everyday life and living environments. His (sub)urban interventions negotiate aspects of the public and often have a direct relation to architecture. Previous films: Conveyor (2025); Prelude (2022); Taking Away (2018); Aufstieg (2016); Transient II (2013) Downloads

What is the possibility, barbarism or folly of making art, poetry, film while a genocide is happening in front of our eyes?

Arjuna Neuman is an artist and writer. He has presented solo mid-career surveys at MACBA in Barcelona, Munch Museum in Oslo, and Belkin Gallery in Vancouver and forthcoming at Kunsthalle Bern. He has presented solo exhibitions at Kunsthalle Vienna; CCA Glasgow; Showroom Gallery, London; TPW Gallery, Toronto; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Istanbul Modern, Turkey; MAAT, Portugal amongst many others. He has participated in the Berlin Biennial, Sharjah Biennial, Bergen Assembly, the 56th Venice Biennial, Qalandia Biennial, Ural Industrial Biennial, Hacer Noche in Mexico and many other large group exhibitions. He has been included in film festivals such as Berlinale, Images Festival, Docsliboa, Third Horizon. In 2024 he won the Artist Moving Image prize at Les Rencontre International Festival; in 2024 he was a fellow at Villa Aurora and in 2022 a fellow at the Flaherty Seminar. His work is kept in the Belkin Collection, Kunsthalle Bern Collectors Circle; IAC Lyon and Platform UK. He has a forthcoming monograph published with Archive Books. As a writer, he has published essays in Relief Press, Into the Pines Press, The Journal for New Writing, VIA Magazine, Concord, Art Voices, Flaunt, LEAP, Hearings and e-flux. He is the founder of Archive of Belonging, a platform and resource list supporting migrants and refugees.

Tales from the Source offers a gaze on the landscapes of the Democratic Republic of Congo to translate a sense of its unfathomable power, diversity and knowledge. The scenery is presented as a character acting as a living entity and inhabited by the symbolism of Congolese traditions. The visual approach borrows techniques from multispectral imaging, resulting in an otherworldly experience with surreal lights and colour. Combined with an original musical composition by Bear Bones, Lay Low, we enter into a sensory dialogue with the landscape, an intelligent, ageless being in constant transformation that challenges our perception.

Léonard Pongo (b. 1988, Liège, Belgium) is a visual artist and filmmaker who lives and works between Belgium and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Pongo's work explores the complexities of perception, and representation while challenging conventional portrayals of the DRC with a focus on traditional narratives and symbols, and their connection to the land. Initially trained as a photojournalist, Pongo's artistic journey began in 2011 when he traveled to the DRC to cover the presidential elections. This experience profoundly transformed his approach to photography, shifting from objective documentation to a more subjective and experiential mode of expression. His family and local communities challenged his initial perspective, encouraging him to develop a more nuanced and intimate portrayal of Congolese life. Pongo is renowned for his mixed-media installations that integrate textiles, photography, diverse printing techniques, and moving images. His work draws deeply from Congolese cosmologies and oral traditions, particularly embracing the concept that "not everything is visible." Using specialized techniques including full-spectrum photography that captures wavelengths beyond human vision, he reveals aspects of landscapes and experiences typically hidden from view. His long-term project "The Uncanny" (2011-2017) explores daily life in the DRC through evocative black-and-white imagery that creates a dreamlike atmosphere, while "Primordial Earth" (2017-ongoing) focuses on the land using color photography, textiles, and video installations to evoke a sense of spirituality and interconnectedness. His latest film, "Tales from the Source" (2021-2024), extends his focus on traditional narratives, focusing on the luba cultures and highlighting the intertwined nature of culture and environment. Pongo's collaborative approach involves working closely with communities across the DRC, drawing inspiration from their knowledge, stories, and traditions and creating visuals that align with the lineage of Luba traditions by creating contemporary forms connected to ancestral concepts and visions. His work has been exhibited internationally at prestigious venues including the Bozar Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels, the Tate Modern in London, the Dakar biennale in Senegal, and the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. In 2023, his first monograph "The Uncanny" was published by Gostbooks, and in 2025 he was selected as one of ArtReview's "Future Greats" by photographer Roger Ballen.

A horse is placed in an enclosed space on an aqua trainer treadmill, doubly enclosed by only the sound of splashing water. We hear much more than we see due to the recorded frequencies and the ambient range of the horse's hearing. Through pitch compression, specialized recording equipment and sound recordings far from the set, the horse's auditory experience has been made audible to humans. Its result is an acoustic representation of the animal's subjective perspective. Through the horse's sonic filter, we hear a different world, yet equally real, than the one we see on screen. While we watch with our human gaze, we hear the horse's complex sonic reality.

Bea de Visser is known for her film art, installation work and sound performances. Her work can best be described as a digital media-based practice -from the perspective of a painter and storyteller who sees the world through different lenses. AnimaIs are a recurring motif in her work. Her latest works focus on non-anthropocentric storytelling. She mixes fiction with the everyday and emphasizes structures of power, dominance and control. Her work seduces the viewer through a rich audiovisual language, exploratory in its narrative. Bea de Visser comes from a background of painting and a study electro acoustic sound. She initially began her career as a sound and performance artist in the trendy club scene and artist’s spaces, early 1980-ies. Bea de Visser attended the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam (1993-1995).

Looking back on the footage of a hijacking at the Dutch national news broadcast, back in 2015. Aidan Timmer, who now shares the age of the culprit, reflects on the incident. While watching the young man struggle to recite a letter on live television, Aidan gets emotionally closer to the boy who took his father hostage.

Aidan Timmer (b. Amsterdam, The Netherlands) his work is mainly based in the audio-visual field. He has increasingly immersed himself in documentary, essayistic and hybrid filmmaking. Most of his films or works arise from this obsessive fascination for all that attempts to convey truth or verity. He sees his films as essayistic explorations of objectivity and the illusion of impartiality. ‘Tarik en Ik' portrays the emotional and obsessive relationship with a fear from the past.

The Flood reframes a historic 1960s flooding event—one that submerged and partially destroyed a greenhouse nursery and adjacent property—within contemporary urban infrastructure and its ongoing debt to land intervention. As internal and external imagery collide, flooding takes on a double meaning: both physical inundation and psychic surfacing.

Ruth Höflich is a visual artist working in moving image and photography born in Munich and currently based in Naarm/Melbourne. Her work as been screened and exhibited internationally including at National Gallery of Victoria, Gertrude Contemporary, Rotterdam International Film Festival, Images Festival, Pravo Ljudski Film Festival and Art Gallery of NSW. She is currently a research fellow at Powerhouse Museum Sydney where she is developing a new film. She holds an MFA from Bard College, New York.

Seule dans sa chambre une femme danse le But? ; un touriste erre dans les rues animées de Tokyo ; une poète parle de rivières, de pitié et de fantômes.

Clément Roussier est né en 1984. Il est l'auteur de deux recueils de poésie (Maintenant il est toujours trois heures; Fondane) publiés en 2025 aux éditions Derrière la salle de bain; ainsi que d'un roman, Sullivan et les ciels de feu des soirs de la savane, publié en 2020 chez l'École des Loisirs. Dans le silence et dans le bruit, sa première réalisation, remporte le Grand Prix de la Compétition Française au FID Marseille 2023.

La vidéo, pour Gaël Peltier, est avant tout le moyen d’enregistrer une performance dont la répétition n’est pas envisageable. Il s’agit d’un art de l’instant qui, comme ici, conduit à une destruction mécanique violente. La proximité avec le cinéma tient dans les procédures des actions auxquelles il se livre, se mettant volontiers en danger et acceptant comme un cascadeur les contraintes et les risques d’une opération minutieusement préparée. Au-delà de cette parenté technique et de références auxquelles on pense inévitablement, tel Crash de David Cronenberg d’après le roman de J. G. Ballard, tout dans cette œuvre s’oppose au cinéma. Il n’y a pas de récit, on se concentre sur un accident, sur l’accélération qui l’y conduit et sur le choc brutal auquel se soumet le performeur. Celui-ci se place entièrement dans le réel ; seuls les protections et le harnachement du conducteur distinguent ce crash volontaire d’un événement fortuit, tel qu’il s’en produit souvent sur la route. Cette similitude intrigue l’œil et indique l’existence d’un désir latent, non seulement de voir mais de participer à ce qui généralement n’est perçu que comme un événement dramatique aux conséquences souvent mortelles.

Gaël Peltier développe une pratique où l’attitude prévaut sur la production d’objets, de ready-mades ou de films, inscrivant son travail dans la lignée d’artistes sans œuvre. Il se définit comme un « artiste infra-conceptuel par défaut », adoptant une position latérale où un protocole appliqué au réel devient matériau. Ses projets mobilisent des engagements précis : prise de 30 kg de surpoids à New York pour un rôle inexistant (La Conjuration, 2010), collision automobile comme action critique (Percussion Mécanique, 2018), ou interventions qui troublent légèrement une situation ordinaire. La vidéo enregistre ces processus, non pour produire un effet, mais pour rendre visibles les conditions d’apparition dans un contexte réel. Il est exposé en France et à l’étranger depuis 2002.