PASSAGES
CENTRE D'ART CONTEMPORAIN
9 RUE JEANNE D'ARC — TROYES
Hélène Janicot (born in 1999, France) lives and works in Paris.
Her recent solo and duo exhibitions include Current, Lo Brutto Stahl, Paris (2025); Sheep Are Counting Me, Taon, Paris (2025); and Horses & Donuts, Concert, Paris (2024).
Her work has also been presented in group exhibitions at Smallville, Neuchâtel (2025); Villa Belleville, Paris (2025); Le 17 Studiolo, Paris (2025); Beaux-Arts de Paris (2025); Frac Île-de-France Reserves, Paris (2024); Magma Maria, Frankfurt (2024); Bétonsalon, Paris (2023); and Off-space ES365, Düsseldorf (2022).
Hélène Janicot’s practice begins with a process of collecting: offcuts, scraps, and manufactured objects become materials subject to short-term alteration, with particular attention given to edges, corners, bark, or sheds, whose common denominator lies in their peripheral character. This sedimented matter gives rise to assemblages, more or less durable, in which each gesture—cutting, covering, hollowing—makes it possible to retrace the conditions of their execution. Transport tubes, cardboard, tape, and paper coexist with more identifiable elements such as insulating foam, an obsolete ceiling light, a glove, or an advertising logo.
In doing so, she activates networks of interdependence within the very spaces she occupies, between objects of circulation and conservation, between volumes and flat surfaces such as digital photographs or drawings. Systems of signs gradually emerge, seeking the conditions under which representation takes shape: from a fortuitous arrangement of matter to an arbitrary gesture, from an intentional sign to questions of standardization and reproducibility.
For her residency at the Passages Art Center, she plans to continue a process initiated during a stay in Düsseldorf, consisting of producing one piece per day (video, sculpture, or drawing) using locally sourced materials. This protocol-based approach, which will result in a publication, involves a meticulous exploration of the territory.
Within the city of Troyes, the Natural History Museum at the Abbaye Saint-Loup has particularly captured her attention, and she intends to orient her research around techniques of preservation.
Presentation of work resulting from research conducted at the Passages Art Center
Saturday, May 2 at 4:00 PM
