He defines himself as a visual artist and environmental activist. Joanie Lemercier is currently exhibiting at Tétris, in Le Havre, in the north-west of France. The artist, who lives in Brussels, sculpts light in space, to the point of modifying our perception of reality. But Joanie Lemercier, born in 1982, is increasingly questioning the limits of everything digital.
From our special correspondent in Le Havre,
” Our economic model was based on going from one festival to another, going to the four corners of the world to present projects. We stopped flying like that frequently. »
Joanie Lemercier is the story of an awakening. From an early age, the artist has used the computer to sculpt light, draw virtual landscapes, playing with computer code: ” When I was little, I started using computers when I was 5-6 years old, always to make drawings, plastic arts. My mother was a computer-aided drawing and plastic arts teacher. Still today, I do pretty much the same thing, I create patterns with the mouse, with the computer “says the artist.
” Joanie also spends a lot of time in nature, to then understand how, by code, to recreate things. We are still sometimes wondering if we are not living in a simulation, we are so surrounded by things that can be recreated by code “, adds Juliette Bibasse, its producer.
Three years ago, Joanie Lemercier discovered that he lived less than 200 kilometers from Hambach, the largest coal mine in the world, in Germany. For the work ” slow violence », the artist filmed these giant machines digging and disfiguring the landscape. Chilling reminder that while reality is virtual, resource depletion is real.
” It’s true that when you’re in a world of virtual reality, or in computer worlds, you don’t really think about the impact you can have, and indeed, to have access to those worlds, you it takes a lot of rare metals to make computers, motherboards, graphics cards. And worse than that, this capitalist world makes us believe that access to resources is infinite. »
” A form of happy sobriety »
In Le Havre, at Tétris, Joanie Lemercier and her producer Juliette Bibasse are experimenting with a projection system based solely on the power of the sun: “ We invite you to follow us outside. And we’ll see if between two clouds we can see the result of this prototype solar projector “.
” I really think there’s a form of happy sobriety where we could, rather than going into endless increases in everything, GDP, consumption, try to cut back a bit and see how we can continue to have a form of enchantment in our lives, maybe also change our priorities. »
To change things, Joanie Lemercier and Juliette Bibasse have joined forces with the activist groups Extinction Rebellion and Ende Gelände. Convinced that artists should no longer just be spectators, but agents of change. Before it is too late.