About

 

„In ihren Arbeiten spielt Claire Laude mit Zeichnung, Raum, Architektur und Natur in behutsam arrangierten Bildern. Die Komplexität all dieser Elemente wird auf poetische Weise entfaltet und zugleich wieder verknüpft und in stille, fotografische Erzählungen transformiert. Ritzzeichnungen in Holz und Ton oder verwitterte, zu fragilen Architekturen zusammengefügte Fensterrahmen bilden Arrangements verlassener Orte des Ehemaligen, „Restlandschaften“ (Per Kirkeby) der Natur, die belebt und abgestorben zugleich erscheinen“

Thomas Elsen, Kurator und künstlerischer Leiter H2, Zentrum für Gegenwartkunst im Glaspalast, Augsburg, Painting Photography

 


 

Claire Laude is a French architect and artist, who has lived in Berlin since 1997 and works with site-specific installations, photography, drawing, video and texts. 

 

Her work deals with the notion of trace and the construction of the memory of a place.  The idea of the perception of a shared memory, the associated phenomenon of “derealization”, and the ambiguity between the imaginary image of a place and lived experience are central points of focus in her research. She choose sites, built or in our natural environnement, that are in danger of disappearing, being forgotten or transformed and questions their reconstruction, destruction and appropriation. She is looking for the image of the perception of a place, situated somewhere between reality, memory and fiction.

 

She is 2023 one of the Laureate at the Villa Salaambô, Institut français, in Tunis. On November 1st 2021 her book “A Silentio” was published by Editions Essarter, a monograph with photographs and text that examines traces of history in a context of a rural landscape in three areas in Greece and Italy. With her project “Ephemeral Intersects” she won the first prize of the Urbanautica Institute Award in 2019 in the category “Space, Architecture & Conflicts”. Text and images were published in 2019 by Editions Essarter in the trilogy of books The Red Utopias, which brings together different authors and photographers on the subject of political utopias in Europe in a post-Soviet era.

 

From 2010 to 2017 she was the co-founder and member of the photographers’s collective and the exhibition space exp12/exposure twelve. She’s now member of Pilote Contemporary Berlin.

 


 

Claire Laude:  Both as an architect and as an artist I have one common topic: the memory of a place. As an architect, I mainly work in rehabilitation and intervention in old buildings. For the architectural project, I search a minimalist intervention, keeping in mind what already exists. As an artist, I focus on places that are in the menace of disappearance or in a phase of transition. Everything that concerns operations of destruction, reconstruction and rehabilitation. I search for traces on the ground, found materials. In both cases my preoccupations are similar. I wonder about the process of memory. Like sedimentation, each “history”, small or big, leaves a trace; and such as layers they come to superimpose one over the other and interact with or destroy each other. This is also a crossover of the reparation concept by Kader Attia, that I would summarize here as a process of cicatrization, a need to “make do” with what subsides a trauma.

I am more particularly interested in the feeling of belonging to a place, everything that can connect us to a place, the collective and individual images, the accompanying dreams, like a double-take or a spectrum of a place, constructed by memories, that subsist the reality.  I am interested in all deviations that come with this ambivalence, the phenomena of appropriation and derealisation…: How does the human being appropriate a space? How can someone appropriate a place and talk about it as if they knew it whilst never having lived in it? What is the collective feeling that pushes towards destruction or conservation of a building? How to live in a reconstructed place, an artifact? How come a place can stay present even though it does not physically exist anymore? The image that lasts is situated between a personal remembrance, a collective image and a registration of what is left. 

To pick up on Louise Bourgeois (interview on France culture 04/10/2016 ) “Votre souvenir est plus intéressant que la réalité”

 

Interview with Steve Besson, Urbanautica Awards, 1 Price Category „Space, Architecture and Conflicts“, 2019

 


 

 

EDUCATION

2013 Curating/ Kuratieren, UDK Berlin

2001 & 2006 Photography, Jörn Vanhöfen, Fotografie am Schiffbauerdamm, Berlin

From 2013 to 2016 Workshops with Roger Ballen and Eva Leitlof, Esther Teichmann

From 2009 to 2011 and 2015 Masterclasses with Aaron Schumann & Arno Fischer

1998-2004 Architecture, TU-Berlin, Berlin – Dipl. Ing. Architektur

 

RESIDENCIES, AWARDS & SELECTIONS

2025 Stipendium für Künstler:innengruppen, Künstlerhaus Lukas, Ahrenshoop

2023 Villa Salaambô, Institut français, Tunis

2023 Förderung Kulturelle Bildung Fördersäule 3, Bezirkamt Neukölln

2022 Berlin studio sponsorship (Berliner Atelierfoerderung), bkk Berlin and Berlin Senate, Berlin

2021 Finalist & Special Mention, Allegro Prize 2021, Contemporary Lynx

2020 Scholarship Sonderstipendium Kulturprojekte, Berliner Senat, Berlin

2020 Residency ΚΟΙΝΩΝΩ // Kinono 4 | “Four (plus one) Elements)”, Tinos

2019 Finalist, Open Air Installation, PhotoRoad Gibellina

2019 SÅM Artist Residency, Lessinia

2019 1st Prize Urbanautica Award 2019, Category „Architecture, Space and Conflicts“

2018 Project’s Scholarship, Projektstipendium Mach den Kiosk, Kunst und Projektraum hr Fleischer e.V., Kiosk am Reileck, Halle

2017 Residency Kaunas Photography Gallery, Lithuania

2016 Residency Exchange NCCA, Kaliningrad, and Künstlerhaus Lukas Ahrenshoop, Germany

2015 Selection Portfolios Reviews Encontros de Imagen, Braga

2014 Finalist Prix Virginia 2014

2013 Finalist Open Call Vacatio, Festival Fotografia, Rom

2013 Selection Portfolio Reviews : Descubrimientos PHE13, Madrid & PhotoIreland, Dublin

2009 Award Mission Jeunes Artistes Award, Toulouse

 

PUBLICATIONS

2023 „Im Grenzbereich der Fotografie“, Augsburger Allgemeine

2021 A Silentio, Éditions Essarter

2019 Les Utopies Rouges, Éditions Essarter – Vol. II, The Reconciliation of Spaces

2019 RBB Online & Art in Berlin

2019 ATPDiary

2018 VT-ph Visual Thoughts

2017 Bilder den Anderen, Edition Hofes Ahrenshoop 

2016 Ahrenshooper Seiten, Edition Hofes Ahrenshoop, Prix Virginia- éditions Filigranes, BLOW Photo, Catalogue Darmstädter Tage der Fotografie

2015 Der Greif Guest Room : Katrin Weber, PEAH, Editions Charlotte Sometimes, Photophores,

2014 L’Oeil, Le Monde M Magazine, Libération, Compétences Photo, Marie-Claire, Ourageis13, Focus Numérique, Fisheye, Phases, Der Greif online, Interview-projects, The Smell of Dust, Catalogue, Festival „Promenades photographiques de Vendôme“, 2014

2013 Catalogue Siehste Geht Doch, Haus am Kleistpark, Berlin, Deutschland

2012 Catalogue Biennale dell’Immagine Bi8, Chiasso, Schweiz

2011 Catalogue Planket, “Det osynliga/ Das Unsichtbare”, Stockholm, Schweden & Berlin, Deutschland

2010 Berliner Jahrhundertläden, Lehmstedt Verlag, Texts : Sabine Zimmer. 160 pictures, 144 pages, hard-cover. ISBN 978-3-937146-97, Sold out

 

EXHIBITIONS

2023 PaintingPhotography, H2 Zentrum für Gegenwartskunst, Augsburg

2023 Circles, Salon im Moritzplatz, EMOP Berlin

2023 Conference, „La mémoire du lieu : Perception(s) et réalités (dé)-construites“, ENAU, Tunis, 2023

2023 Conference  „About Forest fires and their ecological impacts“,  Opening ID’BA season in connection with the theme of the „Nuit des Idées/ Night of Ideas „ „More?“, with Claire Laude, Chiraz Belhadj Khedher, Ahlem Ghayaza, Institut français, Tunis

2022 Manifesto, Galerie L’Imagerie, Toulouse

2022 Silent Spring, Galerie am Körnerpark

2022 A Silentio, PHENO, Thessaloniki

2022 Photobook Market, FOTO WIEN, Atelier Augarten, Vienna

2022 Rethinking Nature, FOTO WIEN, Atelier Augarten, Vienna

2022 AXES, Fonderia, Verona

2022 Candela, Pavillon Milchhof, Artspring, Berlin 

2021 Utopia, a Nowhere Land, Malmö FotoBiennal, online exhibition 

2021 Artist’s book fair, KHB Studios, Berlin

2021 Rethinking Nature, IMAGO Lisboa

2021 Kunst im Bau, Haus des Rundfunks, RBBKultur, Berlin

2020 Breeze & Storm, 48 Stunden Neukölln, Subtei, Berlin

2021 Rethinking Nature, Mois européen de la photographie Luxembourg, Casino Luxembourg

2021 BISCUIT, p145, Berlin

2020 Possible Projects, Blech e.V. Kunst, Halle

2020 5. Roter Kunstsalon, Villa Rot, Burgrieden

2020 pilote : Unter Linden, Subtei, Berlin

2020 ΚΟΙΝΩΝΩ // Kinono 4 | “Four (plus one) Elements)”,  „Fire“, Ismail, Tinos, Greece

2019 The Truth in Disguise, Geste, Paris

2019 Axis, SÅM Artist‘s Residency, Bosco Chiesanuova

2019 The Future of Time, GEH8, Dresden

2019 Les Utopies Rouges, Festival Images Singulières, Sète

2019 Fragments, Guardini Galerie, Berlin

2019 Altered States, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, WUK, Vienna

2018 Projektstipendium Mach den Kiosk, Kunst und Projektraum hr Fleischer e.V., Kiosk am Reileck, Halle

2018 Kleister, Berlin

2018 The Inner Forest, Verzasca Foto Festival 2018, Verzasca

2018 One Year, Revolver Collective, Safe House, London

2018 IN VIVO – The Nature of Nature, Noorderlicht, Museum Belvedere, Heerenveen 

2017- 2018 Bilder den Anderen, Neues Kunsthaus, Ahrenshoop

2017 Abriss, Haus des Gastes, Waren

2017 International Photography Symposium, Nida

2017 Errance Blanche, Fotohaus ParisBerlin, Arles

2017 Das rätselhafte Verschwinden des Malers Alfred Partikel, Neues Kunsthaus, Ahrenshoop

2017 Durchkonstruierte Situationen, NCCA, Kaliningrad

2016 Darmstädter Tage der Fotografie 2016, Darmstadt

2016 Mouvements de Terrain, Galerie Binome, Paris

2016 Lebensraum- Habitat, ParisFotoBerlin, tête, Berlin

2015 Der Greif – Guest Room : Katrin Weber, Galerie f5.6, Munich

2015 Kleister Weiber, Berlin

2015 Tomorrow has passed, One Eyed Jacks Gallery, Brighton

2014 Rückblicke, aff-Galerie, Berlin

2014 From one place to another, EMOP 2014, exp12/exposuretwelve, Berlin

2014 Natures, Gallery La(b) Galerie Artyfact, Paris

2014 Alexanderplatz- Hier bin ich Mensch, Festival Printemps contemporain de Marseille, La Rétine Argentique, Marseille

2014 Festival Promenades Photographiques de Vendôme, Vendôme

2014 Night Contact, Brighton Photo Biennal

2014 The Smell of Dust, Europa Tour

2014 Kleister Weiber, Berlin

2013 Anfassen, Studio 8, Berlin

2013 ISSP 2013, Kuldīga Town Library Arts Hall, Kuldiga

2013 Me, Myself and I, Rayko Photo Center, San Francisco, USA

2013 Siehste Jeht Doch, Haus am Kleistpark, Berlin

2013 Kleister Weiber, Artist Talk, Berlin

2013 Der Raum dazwischen, Kugelbahn, Kolonie Wedding, Berlin

2013 The Smell of Dust, Kunsthalle Sao Paolo

2013 Slide Luck, Portland

2013 The Flood Wall II, exp12/exposuretwelve  Berlin &  Biennale de la Photographie Mulhouse, Mulhouse

2013 „Artist as Curator“, Belfast Photofestival, ACMV, Belfast

2012 Out and about with… Claire Laude, Tour & Artist talk, EMOP, Monat der Fotografie 2012, Berlin

2012 Skinning/Häutung, exp12/exposuretwelve, Berlin

2012 Ogni sguardo un passo, Biennale dell’Immagine Bi8, Spazio Officina, Chiasso

2012 Berliner Jahrhundertläden, Biennale dell’Immagine Bi8, Gallery Consarc, Chiasso

2012 Fotobuchsonntag, Gallery erstererster, Berlin

2012 Vendredi Treize, exp12/exposuretwelve, Berlin

2012 Chimères, Gallery Miror Miror, Lyon

2012 The Flood Wall I, exp12/exposuretwelve, Berlin, Amsterdam, Galerie ConsArc, Chiasso; Near by Night 5, NEAR, Lausanne

2012 The Jury Projection, Festival Les Boutographies, Montpellier & Festival Fotoleggendo, Rome

2011 Festival Manifesto, Toulouse

2011 The Jury Projection, Festival Les Boutographies, Montpellier

2011 Planket 2011, Berlin,  & Stockholm

2010 Re-Take, EMOP 2010, exp12/exposuretwelve, Berlin

2010 Berliner Jahrhundertläden, exp12/exposure twelve, Berlin

2010 twelve exposures, exp12/exposuretwelve, Berlin

2010 Let down the ruler, Atelierhof Kreuzberg, Studio Julie Mehretu, Berlin

2010 Festival des itinéraires des photographes voyageurs, Bordeaux

2008 Sénégal Présences, Espace Transit, Montpellier

2007 Festival Off des Chroniques Nomades, Honfleur

2007 Festival Voies Off, Arles