Rebecca Digne

Rebecca Digne (1982, France) is an artist and filmmaker based in Paris, and a graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris. She was a resident at the Rijksakademie Van Beelden Kunsten in Amsterdam in 2010-2011. She then took part in the Pavillon, laboratoire de création program at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris in 2013-2014. She is a resident at the Villa Médicis in Rome in 2018-2019. Rebecca Digne’s works include sculptures, performances, film installations and videos. Her research is exploited as a terrain where issues linked to notions of memory, loss, identity, language and territory unfold. His work has been exhibited in numerous museums and art centers, including Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Musée d’Art Moderne André Malraux in Le Havre, Musée des Abattoirs in Toulouse, Villa Médicis in Rome, MAXXI in Rome, MACRO in Rome, Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, Centre d’art d’Amilly, La Fondation EDF in Paris, Fondazione Memmo in Rome, Fondazione Nomas in Rome. His works can be found in numerous collections, including those of the Centre Pompidou (Paris), the Fonds Municipal d’Art Contemporain de la Ville de Paris, the CNAP and the Fondazione Memmo.

Residency project
Rebecca Digne’s residency project consists of a series of sculptures, photographs and videos that explore the notion of memory, both on an individual and collective scale. What tools do we put in place to resist this loss? Can we escape it? How memory defines our individual and collective identity. How memory is a tool that shapes our future. The film is a blend of fiction and documentary.

Project as guest artist
The time of this residency is that of writing for a first feature-length documentary that will take place between Florence. The film is a double portrait of Paola and her son Gorky. Paola is an extreme left-wing activist from the 70s, who in the early 90s, with a group of comrades, created a social cooperative called Les Roses, nestled in the heart of a small village in Tuscany. This center, built without any recognized infrastructure, took in autistic adults, including her son Gorki, whom she raised alone. But health problems and the imminent closure of the center force Paola, aged 72, to question Gorki’s future, the durability of his political utopias, and questions of inheritance and transmission. She wants her daughter Lilith to take charge of Gorky, but Lilith refuses to accept a life choice that is not hers. What does the future hold for this place, for Gorki? Are the choices that were once possible, without political ideals, still possible today? How can we pass on a legacy that nobody wants?