Emmanuelle Rosso

Corps-Île

In her series “Corps-Île,” Emmanuelle Rosso takes us on a profound artistic journey anchored in the material and mysteries of the shoreline. Since her installation in 2017 on the enchanting island of Belle-Île-en-Mer, Rosso has explored with a unique sensitivity the textures and hues shaped and abandoned by the sea on the shore. For her, the shoreline is not merely a boundary between land and sea, but a place of metamorphosis where shipwrecked matter resurfaces, laden with stories and meanings.
Her artistic process, combining traditions and experimental dyeing methods, evokes this same movement of emergence and transformation. The rinsing of fabrics in the open air, followed by their immersion in the ocean where salt acts as a fixative, becomes a captivating ritual. It recalls ancestral practices while establishing a contemporary dialogue between the artist and her marine environment. This project draws an analogy between human life and the emblematic natural elements of the island, the rocks and the water. These stone giants, sculpted by the forces of the sea and the passage of time, their lines, their faults, their “drapings” become an invaluable source of inspiration, representing the marks of time, the layers of geological history, and embodying the living memory of the island, testifying to its eternal relationship with water.
With the collaboration of her assistants, Rosso creates evocative tableaux where women blend into the landscape. Beneath subtly painted fabrics, they embody this shipwrecked matter, these fragments of stories that the sea has shaped and abandoned. These photographic compositions, oscillating between chrysalis, costume, sculpture, and shoreline debris, create a space of tension, inviting deep reflection on solitude, belonging, and the interactions between humans and nature.
In “Corps-Île,” the body, as the title suggests, is fragmented, splintered. Rosso pays particular attention to dramaturgy, developing a visual narration that intrigues and questions the viewer. She thus merges painting, photography, and sculpture, inviting us to contemplate these images as fragments of an ever-evolving world. This series asserts itself as a meditation on a poetic of abandonment.