Paul Maheke / Sarah Trouche

Two artists propose new post-feminist readings that involve the re-appropriation of bodies. Paul Maheke will develop a new phase in his project about “hydrofeminisim’s” line of thought, using a danced conference, while Sarah Trouche, in partnership with the Canadian choreographer Wynn Holmes, will divert Pole dancing, turning it into a potential tool of feminist protest.

Paul Maheke / One in three

Paul Maheke’s current research subject, Becoming a Body of Water, finds its origin in the philosopher Luce Irigaray’s thinking on “Hydrofeminism”, taken up by Astrida Neimanis, and imagines the body as an archive using its “waters” as transmission routes for knowledge and information. This investigation occupies a metaphoric space in which the body resonates and echoes the geographical, socio-political and historical context that created it. Giving special attention to dance, he tries to defuse the power relations which create western perceptions and to reformulate the resulting representations of the queer racialized body, by questioning History using non-human subjectivities.

Born in 1985 in Brive-la-Gaillarde, Paul Maheke lives and works in London. A graduate of the ENSA Cergy (2011), he followed a post-graduate course at Open School East in London (2015). He won the Graduate Residency at the South London Gallery which led to a solo exhibition ‘I Lost Track of the Swarm’ at the end of spring 2016. He has exhibited and performed in many institutions including in 2017, the Tate Modern, London (cur. Catherine Wood and Andrea Lissoni), Assembly Point, London. In 2016 at Center, Berlin, at the Sultana Gallery, Paris, at Guest Projects, London, South London Gallery. In 2015 at Instants Chavirés in Montreuil (cur. Mikaela Assolent and Flora Katz), Montreuil and at the 59th Salon de Montrouge in 2014. He was invited to be the resident artist at the Fonderie Darling in Montreal (2015).
The Sultana Gallery in Paris is holding a solo exhibition of his work from 28 April to 18 June 2017.

Sarah Trouche in partnership with Wynn Holmes / I can not be silent – A feminist vertical strike
Performed by Sarah Trouche, June McGrane, Priscilla Roussel, Riana, Malva Van Darz and Roze.

Sarah Trouche’s project is linked to her meeting with Marinela, a Pole Dancer from Miami, whom she met during a residency in the United States, which was supported by the Institut Français in the framework of the hors-les-murs residency program. Her starting point is the discussions she had with this dancer and Amalia Jones’ idea of imagining other possible forms of feminism. Notwithstanding the athletic performances that pole dance involves, this form is mainly limited to striptease clubs, suffers from a particularly negative image and leads to the stigmatisation of the women that perform it. In partnership with the choreographer Wynn Holmes, Sarah Trouche offers a reinterpretation of pole dance figures by combining them with those of the protest.

Sarah Trouche was born in 1983 in Bordeaux. She lives and works between Bordeaux and Paris. She graduated from the l’École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris in 2007 and obtained a Master in Performance Art Making from Goldsmiths University of London in 2008. In 2006, she was awarded a scholarship to study at the Art Center College of Design of Los Angeles with the artists Mike Kelley and Lita Albuquerque. She develops performances in public spaces which have a link with the territory and its geopolitical context. She has notably performed in China, Morocco, Israel, Kazakhstan, Russia, Japan and she recently showed her work at the Armory Show in New York, at Art Basel Miami, at the Taipei Museum of Contemporary Art. She participated in the first Kazakhstan pavilion (cur. Paul Ardenne) at the Venice Biennale in 2015 and in 2016 at the European Biennial Manifesta in Zurich. She has just presented an ensemble of pieces about the notion of Resilience at a solo exhibition at the Vanessa Quang gallery. In September 2017, she will participate in the Zinsou Foundation residency in Benin.