Barbezat & Villetard

White with noise, 2022

Sound installation created in collaboration with Yannick Barman and Maxime Gianinetti as part of a Kunst am Bau project for the patio ALPOLE - Pôle de recherche sur l'environnement alpin et polaire, Sion

Re-installed and reconfigured for Tourbillon Castle thanks to support from EPFL - Valais Wallis

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Alpole, a research center for the alpine and polar environment, was recently inaugurated in Sion, as part of EPFL's extension into the Valais region. In its patio, nine loudspeakers, for as many peaks scattered all over Switzerland, and which have the particularity of housing a meteorological station close to glaciers. The Barbezat-Villetard duet lends its voice to these sentinels of climate change, the nine voices together forming a choir.

As the days and seasons go by, the colors and textures of the sounds change. Temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind... influence and transform these summits up there, and generate data collected and interpreted for the different voices down here. The nine-voice choir adapts the tempo according to the number of visitors to the site.

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Barbezat-Villetard

Duo of artists

born in 2014

Lives in Neuchâtel

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Formed from

Camille Villetard

Born in 1987 in Paris

and

Matthieu Barbezat

Born in 1981 in Nyon

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Camille Villetard holds a Master's degree in Art in Public Sphere from EDHEA and a Bachelor's degree in Graphic Design from ESAG Penninghen, Paris. Matthieu Barbezat holds a Master "CAP" Fine Arts degree from the Bern University of the Arts (HKB) and attended the "Raumstrategien" (spatial strategies) masterclass at Berlin's Kunsthochschule. He completed the Bachlor course in Visual Arts at EDHEA.

Camille Villetard and Matthieu Barbezat collaborated on their respective projects during their studies at EDHEA, and subsequently chose to merge their practice. The duo create installations, which they prefer to call situations for the fictional aspect they activate in the space. Barbezat-Villetard don't just redesign a space, they also sketch out a story that each person will continue according to his or her own imagination.

While they have exhibited in numerous venues from Latvia to Seoul, the duo made their mark in Valais with the aluminum blade that seemed to slice through the Majorie tower in 2016. An exhibition at the Musée d'art du Valais that followed on from the Manor Art Prize won in 2015. With Aucun souvenir assez solide, an installation at the Ferme-Asile barn in 2021, the duo offered the public an immersive experience, both physical and mental, playing with the boundaries between inside and outside, light and darkness.