Conversation about
This Causes Consciousness to Fracture

A discussion on the occasion of the publication by Spector Books of the book This Causes Consciousness to Fracture, conceived as a four-handed photo-choreographic work by Gisèle Vienne and Estelle Hanania. Combining the respective expertise of these two artists, who have been collaborating for fifteen years - EH's image and book expertise, and GV's choreography - this publication echoes two ways of editing and installing a narrative. 

Estelle Hanania, Adèle Haenel and Gisèle Vienne will be in conversation with Sophie Delpeux, art historian and author, whose work focuses on performance and the ways in which it is remembered.

Estelle Hanania, Gisèle Vienne, EXTRA LIFE. Performers Theo Livesey, Katia Petrowick& Adèle Haenel, 2024 - Courtesy Spector Books

Adèle Haenel began her career as a film actress in the 2000s, working with numerous artists and directors. She has notably collaborated with the Dardenne brothers and Céline Sciamma. Since 2018, she has been working closely with Gisèle Vienne.

Credits : © Karen Paulina Biswell

Estelle Hanania is a French photographer who trained at the École d'Arts Appliqués Estienne in Paris, then at the Beaux-Arts de Paris. The same year, she was the winner of the Grand Prix du Jury at the Hyères Photography Festival. Hanania regularly exhibits her work in France and abroad, in group and solo shows (including at BOZAR, Brussels; CAC Passerelle, Brest; Filature, Mulhouse; Frac Bretagne, Rennes; Frac Sud, Marseille; Museum Arnhem; Mudac, Lausanne; and, more recently, at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris.

His work has been the subject of several publications, ranging from a self-published fanzine with artist Christophe Brunnquell (2009), to Parking Lot Hydra (Brooklyn: Decathlon Books, 2009), Myriorama (New York and Paris: Gottlund Verlag, 2010), and Dondoro (Paris: Kaugummi Books, 2011), testifying to Hanania's successive encounters and collaborations. His most recent books - Glaciale Jubilé (2013), Éternelle Idole with Stephen O'Malley (2015), Happy Purim (2015) and It's Alive! À travers l'œuvre de Gisèle Vienne (2019) - are all published by independent publisher Shelter Press, with the exception of her latest book, La guerre du feu, in collaboration with artist Christophe Brunnquell (Tokyo: Komiyama, July 2024). In November 2024, Spector Books will publish her second book in collaboration with choreographer Gisèle Vienne, This Causes Consciousness To Fracture. 

In 2023, Estelle Hanania founded her own publishing house, Myriorama, whose first titles will be released in 2025..

Gisèle Vienne is a Franco-Austrian artist, choreographer, and director. After studying philosophy and music, she trained at the Ecole Supérieure Nationale des Arts de la Marionnette.

For the past 20 years, her productions and choreographies have toured Europe and have been regularly presented in Asia and America, including: Showroomdummies #1, #2, #3, #4 (2001 – 2020), I Apologize (2004), Kindertotenlieder (2007), Jerk (2008), This is how you will disappear (2010), LAST SPRING: A Prequel (2011), The Pyre (2013), The Ventriloquists Convention (2015), Crowd (2017), L’Etang (2020), and EXTRA LIFE (2023). In 2021, she directed the film Jerk.

Gisèle Vienne regularly exhibits her photographs and installations in museums such as the Whitney Museum in New York, the Centre Pompidou, the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires, the Centre d’art Contemporain in Geneva, and the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris. In 2024/2025, she will present two new exhibitions at the Haus am Waldsee contemporary art center and the Georg Kolbe Museum, inaugurated as part of Berlin Art Week 2024.

She has published two books: Jerk / Through Their Tears in collaboration with Dennis Cooper, Peter Rehberg, and Jonathan Capdevielle in 2011, and 40 Portraits 2003-2008 in collaboration with Dennis Cooper and Pierre Dourthe in February 2012. A new photography book, created in collaboration with Estelle Hanania and Elsa Dorlin, will be published by Spector Books in autumn 2024. Her work has been the subject of several publications, and the original music from her pieces has been released on several albums.

Credits : © Andrea Montano

Sophie Delpeux is a senior lecturer (HDR) at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, and a former resident of the Villa Médicis.

The representations on which her research is focused on have been produced in relation to performance practices, but also in the medical field. In both cases, the body is exposed, whether this exposure is desired or not. What these iconographies have in common is that they raise the question of power, whether undergone or claimed, but also reveal the expectations and limits projected onto bodies and agentivities. Sophie Delpeux explores the links between representation, authority, emancipation and care.