Emilie Tolot
The projects
already completed
Inspired by the origins of cinema, the work was born from a desire to translate movement into sculpture — transforming static figures into animated sculpture.
Lumière Museum, 25 Rue du Premier Film, 69008 Lyon
Open from 10am to 6:30pm, Tuesday to Sunday
This rotating platform, 3 metres in diameter, sets 384 sculptures in motion through an interplay of speed and light.
Lighting and stage machinery: Vincent Loubert
Sculpture en liberté
Sculpture in the Wild
An exhibition held from March 21 to May 12, 2023, at UCLy, in the former prisons of Lyon.
For this exhibition, I presented a series of Black Boxes combining my sculptural work and stop-motion animation.
The exhibition also brought together a monumental suspension of sculptures, a roll of quick sketches measuring around twenty metres, around one hundred photographs taken from my films, installations and drawings, as well as the video of Terracotta, a dance-sculpture performance created in collaboration with choreographer Mourad Merzouki.
The central work of the exhibition, however, was the creation of a Zoetrope: a rotating platform three metres in diameter, holding several hundred sculptures that create the illusion of coming to life through variations in speed and stroboscopic light.
A technical and artistic challenge that brings this extraordinary machine — an ancestor of cinema — back to life.
The ancestor of cinema reinvented.
Video by Eric Soudan.
Images from La Ferme du Vinatier
As part of the Karavel Festival, I spent a month at La Ferme du Vinatier, a cultural venue renowned for its artistic programme.
Alongside a 20-minute performance entitled Terracotta — a dialogue between sculpture and dance choreographed by Kader Belmoktar in collaboration with Mourad Merzouki — this residency explored the possibilities of developing a dialogue between these two art forms. The performance took place on September 28.
An exhibition accompanied the event, featuring primarily images taken from my animated sculpture films.
La Ferme du Vinatier
95 Boulevard Pinel, Bron
Selected "Pâte à modeler"
at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival
My short animated sculpture film, created to celebrate the 20th anniversary of dancer and choreographer Mourad Merzouki’s Compagnie Käfig, was selected for the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival in January–February 2022, as part of the Let’s Dance retrospective.
Watch the film: https://youtu.be/Jtss07hwoa0
"Animated Sculpture" at Galerie Pleney
In January 2021, despite the Covid-19 pandemic, I presented a selection of my work at Galerie Pleney
in Lyon, on the Presqu’île.
Over the course of a few weeks, hundreds of visitors came to discover my Black Boxes, groups of sculptures, photographs and drawings, including the writer Charles Juliet.
"En Lumière" at the Lumière Festival
In October 2020, Thierry Frémaux invited one of my Black Boxes to be presented in the hangar where the Lumière brothers made their first films.
The installation pays homage to the famous Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory, bringing together around twenty sculptures and a short animated sculpture film.
Some images from the film "En Lumière" and the inside of the black box.
The "zootrope" at the Lumière Museum
"De la Sculpture au Cinéma"
at Fondation Renaud
This exhibition and performance took place in September 2020 at Fort de Vaise
in Lyon, between two Covid-19 lockdowns.
Across three exhibition spaces covering approximately 300 m², I presented a series of Black Boxes combining sculpture and animated film, alongside drawings, bas-reliefs, installations and a screening of a short film.
The programme also included a live sculpture performance, introductory workshops, and a lecture by Suzanne Lombard-Platet, The Body in Motion: From Edgar Degas to Émilie Tolot.
Two-Year Residency on the Mytoc Barge
In 2017, I exhibited my first, entirely handmade Black Box aboard the cultural barge Mytoc, moored on the banks of the Saône in Lyon.
This marked the beginning of a two-year residency, during which I developed my project combining sculpture and animated films presented within my Black Boxes.
Exchanges with artists, performances, exhibitions and more…
The residency was followed by a year-long residency and a major exhibition at Fort de Vaise.
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