Marie Lukasiewicz

Marie Lukasiewicz’s artistic approach questions reality by playing on the ambiguity of a fictional staging. Engaged in a reflection on current environmental issues, in conducting an investigation into the bleaching and destruction of coral reefs and the exploitation of coral in the parapharmaceutical industry. The study of these organisms, which are essential to the balance of nature and yet doomed for extinction, reveals a complex system of interdependence that is beyond our imagination. Inspired by a 17th century engraving by Philippe Galle representing the looting of the seabed, Marie Lukasiewicz questions perpetual and enduring behaviour despite the ecological emergency. She articulates her research through several mediums –

– photography, video, sound recordings and object exhibitions – and confronts the viewer with a contradictory universe, endowed with regenerative and destructive capacities, both ultra-realistic and artificial. She holds out a mirror to us to question our habits of consumption and self-medication, our beliefs and hopes and the actions that result from them. The minimalist, aseptic and dreamlike aesthetic of his images parallels artistic practice and scientific research, both driven by strong determination and an unlimited capacity for projection.

Text Cécile Tourneur 

Marie Lukasiewicz (Paris, 1982) studied Applied Arts and Visual Communication at the Estienne school and followed by Photography at the Louis Lumière School. After graduating, she worked as an assistant in Canada and on her return to Europe she developed an artistic practice focused on environmental and pollution issues. Concerned with ecology, she strives to go deeper in her work combining it with strong scientific support. The border between reality and fiction is always tenuous in her projects and derision also plays an important role. Back in France, she is currently pursuing her approach with a closer collaboration with the scientific world. In 2018, selected to participate in PARALLEL, she began her project on coral reef bleaching and exploitation by the parapharmaceutical industry. She has participated in several group exhibitions: Kaunas Photography Gallery, Le Château d’Eau, Toulouse, Projections Voies Off, Arles, Noorderlicht Fotofestival, Groninge, Boutographies, Montpellier, Goethe Institut (Paris, Lille, Lyon, Toulouse).