Kimsooja: Traversées\Kimsooja: Palais des ducs d’Aquitane, Poitiers, France

The city of Poitiers, France, invites Kimsooja to create a dialogue between the history and architecture of its remarkable patrimonial buildings and contemporary artworks. Kimsooja occupies the architecture of places like the Palace of the Dukes of Aquitaine or the Saint Louis Chapel with her works nourished from themes of travel, displacement and uprooting. 

Her works with nomadic accents such as "Bottari Truck - Migrateurs" (2007) resonate with fifteen other international guest artists, whose works echo her own practice and infiltrate city life, such as Subodh Gupta from India, Tadashi Kawamata from Japan, France’s Thomas Ferrand or Congolese artist Sammy Baloji. 

An associated program will be organised in Poitiers and Grand Poitier around this invitation to Kimsooja and her universe. Punctuated by showcase events, unique meetings and events in public spaces, Traversées \ Kimsooja invites to a new experience of the city, based on devious ways and reversals of perspectives.

Traversées \ Kimsooja is the foundation event for the Palace Quarter Project, a long-term heritage, cultural and urban planning project, which is expected to take ten years to complete. It is an invitation to (re)discover these iconic buildings and an opening to the world, through contemporary artistic offerings.

Courtesy of Axel Vervoordt Gallery and Kimsooja Studio

Photos by Jan Liegois