Alix Boillot
Alix Boillot (1992) creates sculptures, installations, set designs, performances and publications. What they all have in common is the quest for a certain side – romantic, mystical, playful – of our humanity, which is attached to that which has no value other than that which we attribute to it. In other words, it’s about gathering here on earth tangible traces of our attachment to the sacred.
A graduate of the École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, her work has been presented at the Ménagerie de Verre (Paris), Lafayette Anticipations (Paris), the Fondation Ricard (Paris), the Saint Ignace church during the Nuit Blanche (Paris), Plastique Danse Flore (Versailles), Les Subs (Lyon), the CND (Pantin), the CNDC (Angers), the Festival d’Automne (Paris) and the Festival d’Avignon.
Among many collaborations, she has worked with César Vayssié, Ivana Müller, Ola Maciejewska, Robert Cantarella, Dominique Gilliot, Anaïs de Courson, Émilie Labédan, and Julien Lacroix.
At Villa Medici, Alix Boillot is furthering her research into water and the containers (natural or artificial) that define its form. From lakes to fountains, water settles heavily, horizontally. Her research extends to the water that overflows these rational limits: holy water,the water of rituals in every religion; the water of springs that irrigates many myths; the wet and moving souls of melancholy. Rome, born of the Tiber and master of water management, Villa Medici, its gardens and ponds and the ceremonies of the neighbouring Vatican, make up an ideal field of research and experimentation to approach this poetic and political body.
Photo portrait © Daniele Molajoli
Video portrait © Laurent Perreau pour l’Académie de France à Rome – Villa Médicis