Anne-Charlotte Finel, Vaisseaux (working title)

Contemporary art

Cathédrale Saint-Pierre et Saint-Paul

Vaisseaux

Anne-Charlotte Finel

In the more recent section of the crypts, which fan out in alcoves like a vertical extension of the cathedral’s chapels, the artist has designed a pathway where the works dialogue with the foundations, making the cathedral both a vessel and a sentinel..

Beneath Nantes’s cathedral, the crypts preserve the foundations of a building shaped by nearly six centuries of history: transformed into an arsenal during the French Revolution, damaged by wartime bombing in 1943, and again by fire in 2020. This place of buried time and memory hosts an exhibition of videos by Anne-Charlotte Finel, accompanied by a sound composition by electronic artist Voiski.

For over a decade, Finel has explored peri-urban landscapes where human infrastructure coexists with little-noticed wildlife. Her films reveal the extraordinary within the ordinary: speed, surveillance, and energy production collide with discreet animal worlds whose behaviours sometimes seem machine-like: a refinery becomes a Gothic cathedral, or a butterfly appears to dialogue with aircraft at night. Here, the cathedral itself becomes a vessel – a sentinel.

Among the six works presented, Atlantique was commissioned for LVAN and filmed at Nantes’ airport. It follows Harris’s hawks employed to deter birds from runways. Both working tools and living beings, they reveal the airport as a liminal space: highly controlled, yet unexpectedly hospitable to certain life forms.

Find out more in the press kit

Anne-Charlotte Finel was born in 1986 in Paris, where she lives and works. She is represented by Galerie Jousse Entreprise, Paris.
Artist’s Instagram account.