Catalogue > At random

It all began with a simple card, bearing the note: `If you find this image, please write to the following email address...`. Sabine Massenet, like others who toss messages in bottles out to sea, `launched` her messages into the unknown. Slipped between the pages of books chosen at random in various libraries of the Seine-Saint-Denis region on the outskirts of Paris, they were the beginning of an adventure that lead to rewarding encounters with anonymous readers.

Sabine Massenet is a video artist. She was born in 1958 and lives and works in Paris. In 1997, after having worked with various media (clay, plaster, photography) to create installations in which she would sometimes include narrative elements, she decided to focus solely on video. She explores portraiture, open to language and the resonance of images in collective and personal memory. She also practices the recycling of television or cinema images, which she `re-edits` by playing with the visual codes specific to both media. In 2003, she received digital art funding from the SCAM (Civil Society of Multimedia Authors) for 361° de bonheur, jointly published by the Incidences / Vidéochroniques label. She has also created videos for the theatre, along with site-specific works for the Maison Rimbaud in Charleville Mézières in 2005. Her videos are regularly presented at film and multimedia festivals in France and abroad, in art centres and museums. Solo presentations of her work have been shown at the Cinémathèque Française (2004), Festival Némo and at the Jeu de Paume (2005), and at the Festival des Scénaristes in Bourges (2009). Her video Transports amoureux was selected for inclusion in the TALENTS collection`s first volume. All her videos are distributed by Heure Exquise.