Emma Ben Aziza Lyon, b. 1997

Born in 1997 in Clermont-Ferrand, France, Emma Ben Aziza lives and works in Lyon. Her journey has been shaped by frequent travels to Tunisia. She trained at the Lyon Conservatory for Dramatic Arts, the Écoles Supérieures d’art (Higher Schools for the Arts) in Nantes and Valence, and was part of the Postgraduate program at ENSBA Lyon (Higher National School of Beaux-Arts). Her work, which has been published in Artpress (#517 January 2024), is part of the collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and the library collection of Galerie Transplantation. Her work has also been exhibited at IFA Gallery Stuttgart. She participated in the 68th Salon de Montrouge and will undertake a residency in Taiwan as part of Villa Formose - Institut Français.

Driven by a desire to tell stories, Emma Ben Aziza structures her work in chapters that form a fragmented whole, blurring the boundaries between document, poetry, and fiction. Through her narrative-based installations, gestures emerge from a belief in the transformative potential of storytelling. Drawing from objects, techniques, and narratives that shape our relationship with the living world, she explores the tangible history that surrounds us while seeking to subvert its imprints in the present. She primarily works with collected, found, or purchased materials, reimagining their appearance to expand their narrative possibilities and construct scenographies. Through woodworking, printing, sculpture, or video, she gives special attention to the "small" stories intertwined within the larger narrative. By examining the mechanisms behind the construction of history, she seeks to highlight what Western imperialism erases from the diversity of cultural practices and storytelling traditions.