Claire Frachebourg

Lifeboat, 2023

Sound installation

Construction: Atelier Nolan Gosparini
Lighting: Lauriane Tissot

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Claire Frachebourg installed her Lifeboat in what she calls "the building's breathing space. Sound, a "social fluid", mixes exterior and interior. Starting with a sculpture placed vertically in the basement, which resembles both a boat and a mummy, whose fabric is struck by the currents produced by the old factory's ventilation columns, she aims to translate symbols linked to both birth and death. Thus, the shape of the boat evokes a Gothic church as well as the female sex, a cradle as well as a ghost ship, even a whale carcass or a rocket. "The boat preserves what must cross over, what will survive on the other side", promises the artist.

The sound comes from recordings made in the summer of 2023 during a crossing from Iceland to Greenland, during an artist residency on the sailboat Le Knut organized by MaréMotrice. Claire Frachebourg explains that the song comes from an unexpected encounter when the sailboat was suspended for two days in a windless ocean far from the coast.

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Claire Frachebourg

Born in 1988
Lives and works in Valais

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Claire Frachebourg first trained in improvisation and performance in Germany (graduating from TIP, Freiburg im Breisgau in 2012). It was only later that she turned to the visual arts, obtaining a bachelor's degree at EDHEA (2021) and pursuing her research through residencies, notably at GRM (INA Paris), Palp Festival (Bruson), QQM (Monthey) and an artistic research grant on the voice of the mountain.

Claire Frachebourg likes to reveal places by connecting with them through sound. Through improvisation or sound installations activated by performative gestures, she explores an amplified listening position that transforms and extends reality.

In 2021, she co-founded the "Fais comme chez toi" meetings for emerging artists, which will be held for the third time in October 2023. Sensitive to the balance between personal and collective practices, she is a member of the Collective ???? (with Dianita and Rachel Morend), who like to explore particular spaces for their acoustics, and the Franco-Swiss collective À la source (with Christophe Burgess, Thaïs Venetz, Vanessa Larré and Vincent Ozanon). Interdisciplinary and transgenerational, the latter was formed in 2020 around the desire to explore the movements and cultures linking humans to their environment on a physical, metaphysical and spiritual level.