As part of iMAL Projects Office 2024, Loïs Soleil was selected for a Fablab Residency on summer 2024, where she worked on her project "Je me souviens"

"Je me souviens" is a text engraving on machined aluminium created using the CNC at the iMAL fablab. The text recounts a poignant account of intimate, daily and recurring patriarchal violence, from childhood to adulthood. The story, fragmented across the ages, highlights assaults that are often hidden, or minimised: hypersexualisation from childhood, sexism, sexual assaults, and verbal abuse. These experiences, commonplace in women's daily lives, are exposed here with sincerity and force.

The artwork bears witness to a reality shared by many women, too often hushed, ignored or set aside. It depicts a testemony of sexist and sexual violence that is neither rare nor atypical.

Using a fragmented style, "Je me souviens" evokes memory as a fragmented field, reappearing in the form of fleeting images. Each fragment of the story reflects the difficulty of expressing this suffering, which is often marked by shame or fear, and yet engraved deep within ourselves.

"Je me souviens" is an invitation to break the silence, to bring to light our stories that have long been shoved aside, and to recognise the invisible marks that patriarchy leaves on bodies and minds.

The artwork premiered at the exhibition Sexisme Pépouze, That's What X Said gallery (06/12/2024-26/01/2025)

Through digital art, performance, installation, poetry and sound, Loïs Soleil’s artistic practice aims to bridge the emotional and the political by posing intersectional cyber/techno-feminist questions.

Loïs Soleil’s work confronts the everyday sexist structures of the web, its biais algorithms, codes, culture and languages. It explores the relationships between vulnerability, pop culture, voyeurism and desire; often employing self-portraits, internet performances, and poetry to illustrate a female gaze through which sexuality, love, vulnerability and empowerment can be expressed. From the leitmotif of the bedroom, to relationships, everyday rituals and post-dentity writing, the artist’s work is autobiographically direct, raw and emotionally vulnerable in its hyper intimacy. For Loïs Soleil, the personal is political, the private is political.

Currently living in Brussels, Loïs Soleil is a Franco-Scottish artist who has studied Fine art internationally: at Leeds University, Ensba Lyon and the École de recherche graphique (erg). Her work has been presented at a number cultural events and institutions such as Cultuurcentrum Grimbergen, VIDEOFORMES festival, n0dine gallery, Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles | Paris, festival (Pas si) fragile, Marres Huis voor Hedendaagse Cultuur de Maastricht, IKLECTIK London, Beursschouwburg, La Biennale de Liège (Mutantx), Centrale for Contemporary Art, iMAL Art Center for Digital Cultures & Technology etc.

🔗 loissoleil.com

Loïs portrait by Benjamin Huynh