Zoé Berteloot is a French interdisciplinary and collaborative artist studying in Maastricht. Her disciplines varies between photography, videos, installation and stenography, as well as video interviews. Before studying Interdisciplinary Arts in Maastricht, she completed a bachelor in Political Sciences in Montreal, establishing a first relevant link with our researched topic; the intersection of art and political participation.
She is currently working on her graduation project “Out of Touch : The Wearable Wall of Fashion Workshop” which is part of the FASHIONCLASH festival in Maastricht. (Beurskens, 2023) Her project aims to address the relationship we foster with clothes and what can be discover when the reflexion is pushed forward the conventional textiles and physical aspects of it. In that manner, she emphasises on the importance of the sense of touch to approach this dimension of fashion. In practice, the project will start by a workshop inviting participants to play blindfolded with clothes and create an assortment relying on the materialities and textures, and to reflect on their perception on it with the aim to trigger a thought regarding their connection with the clothes. Afterwards, the results will be presented during a final exhibition, highlighting the main findings and reflexions that emerged from the exercise.
During her interview, Zoé explains the messages she wishes to spread through her art, how she is achieving so, and her expectations regarding her audience. Zoé refers to her artistic practice as aiming to engage in a conversation as she explains that she usually starts by noticing an issue and thereafter assess it in relation to both herself and other perspectives. She is always looking for a participatory way of addressing topics, therefore giving opportunities to a large audience to be part of something.
As Zoé mentioned in her interview, she consider herself politically engaged although she would rather take a stance when it affects her personally. She also raises the question of who is legitimate to address certain topics in the sense that, even tough there are positions on which we should all take a stance, how can we make sure that we are not talking on the behalf of someone else, and therefore potentially depriving someone of their speech. A specific aspect of her political engagement she mentioned is the democratisation of knowledge; or to ensure that everyone has the same access and possibility to information. Consequently, she produces artistic content that is both accessible and inclusive.
By accessible, she means that she is translating messages through her artistic practice because it can be more digestible and easier to understand by visuals than by words for some people, and thus reach a larger audience.
By inclusive, she aims to give the possibility to everyone who wish to participate in the content production. Indeed, she considers that art invites other people in the conversation and thus might democratise the political sphere by making it easier to understand and less barefaced, allowing space for self-reflexion rather than imposing an opinion.
Although she is familiar with the concept of Artistic Activism, she assessed her lack of theory and how to properly frame the definition and implications of the concept. Zoé also described Artistic Activism in few terms relating to the theoretical framework previously established in the research such as the concepts of affect and effect, that combined together creates the contribution of Artistic Activism. It shows that even though the proper definition is not known, the aspects of the concepts are understood.
Zoé values her audience in a very special way as she expects it to participate in the making-process of her artwork. As previously mentioned, she mainly work on collaborative projects both with other artists and her audience. For instance, the workshops organised for her final project are the application in practice of what she expects as an exchange with her audience. Zoé will understand and collaborate with the audience to create an experience for them, that they can remember in the future. In that respect, she request an effort of participation and understanding from her audience.
The pictures here-above shows different items that will be used during the workshop, both to present and to be used. We can observe the omnipresence of the colour blue which is the favourite colour of Zoé, as well as the color she chose to showcase for the setup of her workshop. The blue components are boxes, rugs, boxes, textiles and so on.
The visual gallery on the right was shooted in the studio where she is currently constructing the main structure of her workshop. It aims to be a fitting room completely covered with clothes. As explained beforehand, participants will be invited to enter the fitting-room and take the time to touch the clothes and to immerse within the clothes, which will potentially engage a reflexion regarding their own relation to it.
She collected clothes from second-hand shops in Maastricht and displayed it through a net, representing the tossed clothes that can be found snarled in sinner fillet on the coasts of Ghana.
