Théodora Barat

Born in the Paris region in 1985, Théodora Barat is a visual artist.

Théodora Barat studied at Nantes’ School of Fine arts before enrolling at The Fresnoy National Studio of Contemporary Arts. She is currently developing a research and creation thesis for the RADIAN Doctoral programme. Her awards include the Audi Talents Prize in 2016, the FACE / Étant Donnés grant and Individual Creative Assistance (AIC) in 2020, and the Institute for Photography’s Research and Creation Support Programme’ grant in 2021.

Her work mixes sculpture, film, installation, video and photography. It has been presented at K11 – Musea (Hong Kong), the CNEAI, the Emily Harvey Foundation and the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts (New York), Nuit Blanche, the Friche de la Belle de Mai, Mains d’Œuvres, Glassbox and CAC Vilnius (Lithuania), as well as in the context of the Palais de Tokyo’s video programming and at numerous international festivals.

The project she is working on at Villa Medici focuses on study of and research on the possibility of a documentary form of sculpture. How do you imbue a sculpture with documentary value without making it a re-enactment? How do you reproduce a historical context without making it a simple illustration? The project originated in the constructions occupying Fellini’s backdrops, in dismantled Italian nuclear power stations and rationalist architecture. All of them are different incarnations of modernity, different witnesses to its shifts and changes. The project seeks to reveal the historicity and documentary value of these structures. Based on this corpus, Théodora Barat is set to create a series of sculptures, located and staged on Rome’s outskirts, so blurring the frontiers between filming, construction site and re-creation. The reanimated past and reactivated narratives will put different temporalities on a collision course. But this time, the remains will be purely fictional.

 

 

Image : © Daniele Molajoli