Charlotte Clermont’s exhibition du soleil, que ça existe in Hippolyte Studio is a two-channel analog projection that explores the temporal dimensions of how the body forms, preserves, and creates what we translate as the real, using film, sound and space. Centered on themes of desire, distance, and language, this textual project moves through the vastness of language and landscapes, creating a sense of space within dialogues and approaching landscapes as bodies. It examines the human relationship with natural elements, particularly water. Fluidity—both of water and identity—is central to the work, inviting viewers to reflect on the nature of self and perception.
Shot on black-and-white 16mm film, the images move away from classical cinematic narrative to become moving photographs. Though figurative, the slow panoramas of landscapes and close-ups of bodies tend toward abstraction. On a technical level, Clermont experimented with solarization to produce images that blur the boundaries between drawing, painting, and film. The result is a play of textures, light, and shadow that adds to the emotional depth of the work. The sound component, with dialogue in French and Finnish, further complicates the notion of a singular identity, as the same voice seems to belong to multiple people, highlighting themes of fragmentation and multiplicity.
The exhibition space resemble that of a theater, where the film is shown through analog 16mm projectors. By choosing these technologies, Clermont reinforces the material and poetic coherence of her work by situating it within an aesthetic of extended temporality, circularity, and presence. The overall atmosphere of the project is inspired by The Malady Of Death (1982) by Marguerite Duras, where she describes how a window overlooking a dark sea at night becomes a central element in her novel. In response to this imagery, the gallery space is bathed in a soft, bluish light to evoke the presence of the sea at night.
Charlotte Clermont (b. 1991, Canada) is currently based in Helsinki. With a background in analogue experimental film, she is developing a practice in which memory, sensation, and transformation become malleable and living materials. She approaches analogue tools as sensitive extensions of the body, where photochemical processes become languages of their own, generating perceptual fields that continually reinvent themselves in a tension between presence and disappearance. She graduated with a Master of Fine Arts from the University of the Arts Helsinki in 2024. Since 2016, her work has been screened at more than sixty international film festivals such as Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival (Czechia), Fracto (Germany), Beijing International Short Film Festival (China), International Festival of Films on Art (Canada), Fisura (Mexico), and DOBRA (Brazil). In fall 2026, she will participate to LIFT’s residency in Toronto, and to Nordic Culture Point’s B28 on Suomenlinna in spring 2027.
Charlotte Clermont
du soleil, que ça existe
7 August – 6 September 2026
Hippolyte Studio
image: Charlotte Clermont, du soleil, que ça existe, 2024–2025