Julie Vacher

Julie Vacher documents the transformative processes at work in human relations, relations between humans and non-humans, and between living beings and their environment, in an age where physical and virtual co-exist. Her experimentations address our conceptions of ecology, our obsession with hygiene, and the world of work. She works in film, sound and multimedia installation, as well as web and radiophonic creation. Her poetic narratives are rooted in real life, forming hybrids of natural and synthetic, documentary and speculation. Julie Vacher is a graduate of Le Fresnoy-Studio National des Arts Contemporains (2018) and École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Lyon (2013). Her work has been shown at major contemporary art and film venues including FID Marseille (France), Taipei Digital Art Festival (Taiwan), Helicotrema at Palazzo Grassi (Italy), Salon de Montrouge (France), Musique en Scène Biennial (France), FRAC Poitou-Charentes (France), American Documentary Film Festival (USA), Galerie Untilthen (France), Cinéphémère – FIAC Hors-les-murs (France) and SNIFF (Finland).

Julie Vacher first came to Kyoto in 2022 with a project for a sound installation, which became a project for a short film. An elderly woman lives alone in Kyoto. She has lost the power of speech. Over the course of the film, she gradually relearns to use her voice and words at the same time as she emerges as an individual. This inventive portrait makes use of language to explore solitude in post-covid Japan. Julie Vacher’s work is attentive to human voices and how language carries the symptoms of a society. While in Japan, she met people whose voice is both an instrument of work and a means of experimentation: actors at the Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (SPAC), led by Satoshi Miyagi, singer Marlyn Anasonic and participants of dubbing workshops at the Kinder Film Fest, together with more traditional forms such as noh theatre.

Photos :
Portrait : DR

– Bbbuuurrrnnnooouuuttt
Installation sonore et lumineuse (5 canaux), 10min, socles, moquette, câbles, Exposition “Comme les mots me paraissaient exsangues…”La Générale, Paris, FR, 2019, crédit Julie Vacher

– Les Parlants et les Écoutants (détail)
Installation sonore (9 canaux) et lumineuse (10 canaux), assises, 27 min, 2018, Exposition “Panorama 20”, Le Fresnoy, FR, 2018, crédit Julie Vacher

– Plat de Résistance
Création Radiophonique, stéréo, 27 min, 2018, Production France Culture, Creation on air, Sound Factory, crédit Julie Vacher

– La Mytho : studio training
Installation immersive : multimédia (4 canaux sonores et 1 écran), vinyl coloré, tissu et câbles, 10 min, Villa Belleville, Paris, FR, 2019, crédit Julie Vacher