Sabine Mirlesse — En questions
Through what she brings to light, Sabine Mirlesse (1986) delves into the dynamics behind the construction of knowledge, focusing less on its outcomes than on the mechanisms through which they arise. Her work resembles a patient excavation of intellectual processes, where the boundaries of thought—be they logical or perceptual—become objects of inquiry. By focusing not on the content produced by knowledge, but on the forces that shape it, she excavates the invisible framework of our multiple—and at times contradictory—attempts to make sense of the world.
How did you get into art and what has been your career path so far?
I never planned on being an artist. I was interested in literature, archaeology, medical anthropology even, and the philosophy of religion. My first university degree was in the humanities and literature. But I did start printing in a darkroom when I was eleven years old, and I think my way into art was through analogue black and white photography and the unique solitude of the chemical darkroom— the smell of the baths, the light, the image revealed as a trace of the past, a moment suspended, and so forth. After my first diploma in Montreal I then went directly into an MFA in New York and at first found myself navigating this new factor— I knew how to write a research paper on exegesis for example, but producing new forms every week and having to defend every single decision in critiques and be asked to take into consideration the very history of art on a daily basis was a radical and intimidating switch. I was the youngest in the program that year and one of the only ones that hadn’t come with a bachelor’s in fine art to begin with. My “path” was a bit “unorthodox” at the time and while it worried me at the beginning, many of my teachers encouraged me to see it as a strength.
I came to Paris just a year after finishing that masters, after a stint in Iceland where I was making the work that would become the subject of my first book and solo exhibition, As if it should have been a quarry. At the time it felt more possible to make art here and survive from it than it did in the other places I’d lived. Culture is taken seriously, artists are part of a greater social human ecosystem that is valued. I know there are many things today that the community of creatives I work amongst wants to to be improved, and that desire to improve is precious, but when you are comparatively coming from a different system, it was astonishing what was already in place. That said it’s had of course its challenges, as I didn’t know anyone when I arrived and had to begin from scratch, learning how things work here, the language, and building that community took years. I had a variety of odd jobs at the beginning to make it through.
Do you provide all the keys to understanding, or do you leave some areas of indeterminacy in your work?
I think artwork should have a vibration first and foremost. And then, yes, if someone inquires or has the curiosity, it is wonderful when the depth of reflection and research is there as well. Things become more whole. In any case, it’s usually felt on the public side when things aren’t, or equally for that matter relying too heavily on intentions.
Through your work, do you wish to portray the image of another possible world, or on the contrary, encourage us to imagine our own in a new way? I work with the world I live in, not in another. History overflows with fascinating layered stories and details whether written or oral, and even in imagining new forms in it, they are informed by the past, present, and it is a kind of continuation, and that is where the wealth of poetry resides for me.
Can you tell us a little about the exhibition you are currently presenting?
I just opened my solo exhibition entitled Instruments at Andréhn-Schiptjenko gallery in Stockholm (they also have a Paris space where I had a show in 2024.) It takes place both in the walls of the gallery and simultaneously off-site— in a work I made specifically for the archipelago waters, entitled “Ode to Measurement”. I spent a year making all this new work, very much in continuation with stories of human’s deciphering of natural phenomena, of calculation in landscape and the forms we give to the instruments and systems we invent that reveal information about that natural world and more specifically meteorological and geological events. The installation in the water is placed at the site of the Mareograph and in direct tribute to the longest history of sea level measurements on earth.
Has exhibiting changed the way you work?
I think, like in many fields, having a deadline— a calendar, can be the thing that makes you finally just get to the point a bit and push things to there full realization/manifestation. There are different periods, periods of reflection, of research, of tests, of reading and writing, of studio visits and discussions but also of production and completion. There can be sometimes this kind of intensity that makes you have to really make a decision about what it is that you want to do-and say, and execute it. Exhibiting has given me the privilege of also putting things into the world and seeing how they exist outside my atelier, my notebook, my thoughts, the interior universe of every creative— you confront the reality that this thing you made will go before other people and be in the world, it forces you to articulate and also see how the things you make live outside of you.
Which current exhibition(s) would you recommend?
Apocalypse at the BNF! It’s on for a few more weeks. It’s the kind of well-researched show you can spend a couple of hours in and still be thinking about for some time afterwards and I’m not saying that in the least bit because I had the honor of being included, although I worry it sounds like self-promotion. Just the historical pieces are all united in one place which makes it this unique constellation. You realize how the theme and research is infinite and cyclical and is punctuated by how it manifests in other places once you’ve contemplated it after you leave the show— and it goes without saying that it is pertinent to this moment in time. That Which Carried Me at the Bonniers Konsthall in Stockholm was also lovely. I just saw Le Manque and The Dream Formula at Christian Berst gallery… There is a great show currently on at Kadist in Montmartre too called Rien que la Vérité about fiction as pointing to truth. And it’s been quite a while since closed but the Chantal Akerman show the Jeu de Paume was particularly strong for me and in parallel with the Tina Barney perhaps in part because of the feeling in the work that it is no longer possible today to make because how changes in image technology have permanently altered people’s relationship to being photographed and self-awareness…
