Born in 1996 in Paris, France.
2015-2018: Les Gobelins, School of Image, Photography, Paris
2018-2021: Royal College of Art, Photography, London
http://www.hannaharchambault.com
https://soundcloud.com/hannaharchambault
Hannah Archambault
My installations investigate the elements lying with the invisible and the unsaid.
Can sound be an ‘alluring revealer’?
Intimacy, ambiguity and different systems of beliefs shape my practice. I use symbols, such as salt and hibiscus, as markers of our societies that carry personal and collective stories.
Composing environments that disturb our senses and spatial awareness, I invite the viewer to trust and rely on the body's adaptation to the space. As a result, the installations that I build welcome both contemplation and reflection.
Pursuing this quest where the personal is interwoven with the collective, my practice exists in the grey area where politics insidiously emerge from the intimate.
I wonder: how closely are our intimacies connected with bigger systems?
Pactum Salis, exhibition view
Pactum Salis, exhibition view
Pactum Salis, detail
Pactum Salis, detail
Pactum Salis, exhibition view — The extracts displayed are in French. Here are examples of the Bible's New International Version:
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Genesis 3:16
To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
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24:16
The woman was very beautiful, a virgin; no man had ever slept with her.
Pactum Salis, video of documentation
Pactum Salis is a Latin proverb meaning « the pact of salt ». It refers to a pact of friendship, where the salt is shared, as food between friends.
The hibiscus flower is a symbol of femininity, known to relieve menstrual pain when drunk as a beverage.
The texts displayed are from the Genesis' Bible. They portray female roles. Religion being one of the foundations of a society, it disseminates ideas, metaphors, but also realities. Consciously or unconsciously, it colours our relations with others.
Pactum Salis is an encounter between visions of women through the foundation texts and the need today to deconstruct this imaginary to leave women being whomever they choose to be.
To listen at the sound piece: https://soundcloud.com/hannaharchambault/pactum-salis
Medium:
700 kg of salt, infused hibiscus water, vases of glass, sound pieceSize:
variables dimensions![[untitled]](https://res.cloudinary.com/rca2020/image/upload/f_webp,h_900,w_1920,c_fill,g_auto,q_auto/v1/rca2021/60c70020101fec8c9f47ef53-689097?_a=AXAH4S10)
![[untitled]](https://res.cloudinary.com/rca2020/image/upload/f_webp,h_900,w_1920,c_fill,g_auto,q_auto/v1/rca2021/60c70020101fec8c9f47ef53-867456?_a=AXAH4S10)
I Need To Tell You Something, extract of the female chant — To listen at the mantra: https://soundcloud.com/hannaharchambault/i-need-to-tell-you-something-mantra-2021
I Need To Tell You Something, videos
I Need To Tell You Something examines the weight of menstrual blood within cultures.
A collective female chant, like a mantra, fills the space.
An ongoing process of soaking bedsheets through time with hibiscus flower is open to the public. They are both taking shape in the form of rituals, suggesting new ways of perceiving menstruations.
How can the shift of menstruation’s shame to celebration occurs? Can rituals be invented as a form of empowerment? Do voices allow for the unleashing of bodies?
During menstruations, shame and disgust are culturally taught to women, in addition to forms of exclusion, leading to this event becoming a myth as fascinating as repulsing. In which extent our intimate lives are nested to politics?
I deeply thank the women who sang with me the mantra: Beya Gille Gacha, Fleur Gille Gacha, Macha Pangilian and Eléa Jeanne Schmitter.
To listen at the sound piece: https://soundcloud.com/hannaharchambault/i-need-to-tell-you-something-mantra-2021
