Writing gestures in contemporary art

In a format that blends lecture and performance, Sally Bonn presents the findings of a research project – which at times takes on the character of an investigation – to explore a new form of interplay between artistic practices and writing practices in contemporary art.

Drawing on contemporary examples, the aim is to shed light on these almost archaic gestures to which artists who use words and poets or writers who draw seem to return, in a ceaselessly renewed attempt to grasp, through the body, what makes us exist in the world, or, to put it in Michaux’s words, what makes us ‘participate in the world through lines’.
Sally Bonn’s research is fuelled by a kind of inquiry and never strays from a form of textual pleasure. The rich body of material gathered—dynamic and contemporary, visual and textual—serves as a model for a unique way of thinking through action.

Sally Bonn holds a PhD in Aesthetics (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) and is a senior lecturer in Aesthetics at the University of Picardie Jules Verne.
She writes critical, theoretical and occasionally fictional texts, works as an art critic (‘La Dispute’, ‘La Critique’ and now ‘Les Midis de Culture’ on France Culture / Artpress), and also curates exhibitions and performs in lecture-performances. She has founded or co-founded two journals, one of which – N/Z – explores the links between artistic practices and writing practices, and she hosts radio programmes on *DUUU (“Le studio des écritures” and “Dit voir”).
She edits the artists’ writings collection “Les indiscipliné-es” for Macula publishers.
Sally Bonn works on artists’ writings, writing in all its forms and in all its meanings. Her current research focuses on the gestures of writing in contemporary artistic practices, which will result in various events: a symposium, an exhibition, a book…

Photo credit: © Jean-Luc Perez