Julie Dusuel

Julie Dusuel is a French artist currently living between Marseille and London, but originally from Amiens in the North of France.

They spent a large part of their adulthood in Marseille, studying for a BA in Fine Art at the ESADMM followed by an MFA. They graduated with Distinction in 2015.

They have now graduated from the Royal College of Art in London as part of the Contemporary Art Practice pathway.

My work engages with erotism and desire, social justice and ecology, from an intersectional and queer feminist perspective.

I use writing, moving-image, extended reality, sculpture, and sonic material as my main languages. Through my work I imagine ways to step away from the dominant gaze and the anthropocentric experience, breaking through different layers of reality. My own healing is part of the process.

A hybrid skin – Working with live organisms is something I have wanted to do for a long time, but without turning them into some kind of decoration or using them as a token for ‘nature’. I was drawn to mycelium because of its incredible capacity for networking and communication. It is one of the oldest organisms on Earth, it multiplies, it creates communication networks between different species, and it brings life full circle by decomposing vegetal matter. With it I am making a sculpture of skin.

St Agatha – This piece is an exploration of the character of St Agatha, using cast glass. A long and slow process gives life once more to this Catholic saint, whose breasts were cut off when she refused to give herself to a man, and which then - the story says - healed overnight. Up to this day, she is the saint prayed to by Christian believers who experience mastectomies or sexual abuses. This glass sculpture is a way to re-appropriate the narrative of “St Agatha as a victim” into one which gives her agency.

Industrial Gangbang – Moving image, 3'4 A voice retells a VR porn experience. A glitchy digital dancer moves through the spaces, and enters into a speculative, erotical, queer fantasy.