Ina Mihalache

Les buveuses d'eau - Installation - 2017

présentée dans le cadre de l'exposition panorama 19

Installation


Voir le teaser

Three chair-bathtubs are gathered together in the exhibition space. They offer to take charge of the bodies of visitors who, seduced by their song the way we’d be by that of the mermaids, will dare to sit down in their “berth.”
You then slip into a utopian environment imagined for your well-being.
In this pram for adults in the shape of an ear, strangely salutary sentences are whispered to you. You can lean against it. You are encouraged to let yourself go: absolute relaxation in every limb, every part of your body, including your head, for you have crossed the threshold of a state that avoids productive purposes. Deactivation of the social environment. You experience a peculiar quality of absence. Sounds and voices reach you through a pipe, amplifying your feeling of immersion. With a faraway look in your eyes, you float: catharsis is slowly liquid. You could remain like this for a whole day, indeed for your whole life. But you recognise Henri Michaux’s words, which already resonated earlier in your hiding place. Now’s the time for the return journey onboard the capsule that seems to come from the end of the world.

“Devotees of the simple perspective may be tempted to judge all my writings as those of a drug addict.” Henri Michaux, Miserable Miracle

Ina Mihalache


After studying History of Art at the University of Montreal, Ina Mihalache came to Paris and studied acting at the Cours Florent. After failing the Conservatoire entrance exams she worked as a camera operator/editor for television documentaries, while also developing video installations. In 2011 she discovered YouTube and created the channel “Solange te parle.” She has an audience of 350,000, has published some two hundred videos, works with Radio France, has directed a first feature film, has published three books and sometimes acts in the theatre.

Production


Le Fresnoy - Studio national des arts contemporains, Tourcoing