Julie Chovin (FR / DE)

In her early work, which ranges from the individual body to the collective landscape, Julie Chovin (born in Valence, France) was interested in the tension between reality and the imaginary, using mixed media from drawing, photography to object and installation.
She seeks the forms of power in the urban cityscape and architecture through walking. She experiences the urban space with her body and captures images that become elements of a studio work. She seeks her way, gets lost, and discovers everyday spaces with a preference for open and abandoned or transitional spaces. Her photographs and drawings of landscapes reflect the social and political links in a globalized context, an empty landscape functioning as a memory, triggering the imagination in everyone and opening up possible narratives. They are itineraries, photographic and physical or imaginary and drawn, spread on the pages of a book or in the space of a room.

Trying to materialise the gap between the myth of the underground culture in Berlin and the actual situation, she authored the artist book The Place to Be, Night Clubs in Berlin, 2013-2020. It was produced by Katalogsförderung of the Berliner Senat and published by Vexer Verlag (Berlin/StGallen). The project is a collection of 220 photographs taken in the winter daylight of Berlin nightclubs facade, contrasting with the idea of underground and party city that a lot of people have.

Julie Chovin lives and works in Berlin. She graduated from the Saint-Etienne Higher School of Art and Design (France) in 2006. She won the Icar Award in 2008 and exhibited at the RX Gallery (Paris) in 2009. In 2012–13, she received the DAAD scholarship. Her work was presented at numerous exhibitions like the Biennale de l’Image Tangible (Paris France), Librairie Volume (Paris), Tête (Berlin, Germany), Chimera Project Gallery (Budapest. Hungary), BWA Sokół Gallery (Nowy Sacz, Poland), CK Zamek (Poznan, Poland), and Arsenal Gallery (Bialystok, Poland).

Date of residence: 1. 2. –30. 4. 2022

https://www.juliechovin.com/