Sophie Orlando
University of the Arts London, Chelsea College of Arts, UAL, Associate Professor of Art Theory and Art History
Sophie Orlando is and Art Historian, a researcher, and an author based in Paris. She is associate professor in Art Theory at the Art School Villa Arson, in Nice.
Her research focuses mainly on the epistemologies of the visual art practices and critical art pedagogies.
In 2016 she published the essay British Black Art, Debates on Western Art History, (Dis Voir). By means of the Theory-Critic scholarship from the CNAP (2013) she works with the artist Sonia Boyce through a residency and a new piece and an exhibition called “Paper Tiger Whisky Soap Theatre, (Dada Nice), (Villa Arson January 30 – April 29 2016, ). She also directed a monograph on Boyce’s practices of improvised video performances entitled Sonia Boyce, Thoughtful Disobedience, (Presses du Réel-Villa Arson, 2017).
As a researcher from the program AHRC “Black Artists and Modernism” (2015-2018, UAL, Middlesex University) she has organized seminars in European collections, and co-directed with artist susan pui san lok and curator Nick Aikens the symposium « Conceptualism: Intersectional Readings, International Framings » at the Van Abbemuseum (2017) which has led to a publication (2019).
She is finishing an academic book called "La fabrique des récits de l'art" (Presses Universitaire de Vincennes, 2025) about the fabric of narratives and canon in the British Art after 1979, focusing especially on British photography documentary and Black Arts, and attempting to reposition the 1990s in the framework with feminist and decolonial readings.
Since 2019, she has developed several research projects about critical pedagogies in arts. She is the founder of "la surface demange" a research program dedicated to critical approaches to art education at the Villa Arson (2019). She is co-editing a series of books "Scratching the surface" (Villa Arson-Sternberg Press) with the researcher and editor Alice Dusapin. https://lasurfacedemange.villa-arson.fr/articles
After 10 years of research and pedagogical collaboration within a theoretical and practice based studio, the artist Katrin Ströbel and her published Ants Walk Two Ways (Villa Arson-Archive Books) setting a cross-generation art scene in the context of post-2008 economical and political situations.
She also published an experimental book crossing a pedagogical semi-fictional narrative, a reflexive and inclusive art history, and a critical pedagogies' thinking called "La part affective (Paraguay, 2024).
After collecting about 50 voices about artistic high education, forms of life and teaching during several years, she is now working on an essay about epistemological issues in high art education.
..
Address: Paris
Her research focuses mainly on the epistemologies of the visual art practices and critical art pedagogies.
In 2016 she published the essay British Black Art, Debates on Western Art History, (Dis Voir). By means of the Theory-Critic scholarship from the CNAP (2013) she works with the artist Sonia Boyce through a residency and a new piece and an exhibition called “Paper Tiger Whisky Soap Theatre, (Dada Nice), (Villa Arson January 30 – April 29 2016, ). She also directed a monograph on Boyce’s practices of improvised video performances entitled Sonia Boyce, Thoughtful Disobedience, (Presses du Réel-Villa Arson, 2017).
As a researcher from the program AHRC “Black Artists and Modernism” (2015-2018, UAL, Middlesex University) she has organized seminars in European collections, and co-directed with artist susan pui san lok and curator Nick Aikens the symposium « Conceptualism: Intersectional Readings, International Framings » at the Van Abbemuseum (2017) which has led to a publication (2019).
She is finishing an academic book called "La fabrique des récits de l'art" (Presses Universitaire de Vincennes, 2025) about the fabric of narratives and canon in the British Art after 1979, focusing especially on British photography documentary and Black Arts, and attempting to reposition the 1990s in the framework with feminist and decolonial readings.
Since 2019, she has developed several research projects about critical pedagogies in arts. She is the founder of "la surface demange" a research program dedicated to critical approaches to art education at the Villa Arson (2019). She is co-editing a series of books "Scratching the surface" (Villa Arson-Sternberg Press) with the researcher and editor Alice Dusapin. https://lasurfacedemange.villa-arson.fr/articles
After 10 years of research and pedagogical collaboration within a theoretical and practice based studio, the artist Katrin Ströbel and her published Ants Walk Two Ways (Villa Arson-Archive Books) setting a cross-generation art scene in the context of post-2008 economical and political situations.
She also published an experimental book crossing a pedagogical semi-fictional narrative, a reflexive and inclusive art history, and a critical pedagogies' thinking called "La part affective (Paraguay, 2024).
After collecting about 50 voices about artistic high education, forms of life and teaching during several years, she is now working on an essay about epistemological issues in high art education.
..
Address: Paris
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Books by Sophie Orlando
The book renders public and tangible the critical contribution of the Situations post workshop in the context of a workspace created at the Villa Arson (2014–2023), as well as the setting in motion of a body of collective, crossdisciplinary and ephemeral practices.These practices share collaborative and educational aspects, and aspects that belong to a continuum of institutional critique.
With:
Flo*Souad Benaddi, Karima El Karmoudi, Filles de Blédards, Nelle Gevers, HaYoung, Sarah Netter, H·Alix Sanyas, Ghita Skali, Silina Syan, gave rise to a prolific exchange between the textual and visual forms of authors Sara Ahmed, Annie Ernaux, Stuart Hall, Marielle Macé, Bonaventure Ndikung, Qalqalah Collective, Sayak Valencia, as well as artists M'barek Bouhchichi, Jagna Ciuchta, Nikolaus Gansterer, Stella Geppert, Laïla Hida, Maya Mihindou, Samir Ramdani, and Massinisa Selmani.
Editors: Nick Aikens, susan pui san lok, Sophie Orlando
Associate Editor: Janine Armin
Assistant Editor: Evelien Scheltinga
Contributors: Nick Aikens, Juan Albarrán, Lotte Arndt, Eva Bentcheva, Sonia Boyce, Jennifer Burris, Valerie Cassel Oliver, Laura Castagnini, Alice Correia, Sandra Delacourt,David Dibosa, Fabienne Dumont, Iris Dressler, E. C. Feiss, Annie Fletcher, Alexandra Kokoli, Charl Landvreugd,Elisabeth Lebovici, Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes, susan pui san lok, Sophie Orlando, Sumesh Sharma, Sarah Wilson, Wei Yu
co-notating, in other words the process of annotating,
and the creation of signs associatively transferred to
the essential. Nikolaus Gansterer’s research examines
our ability to grasp and to annotate our perceptions
using cognitive tools and a mooring in phenomenology.
His artistic production includes drawings, videos and
installations.
How to perceive one reality through another? How can
one note the density of something that evaporates as
soon as it has been felt? How can one transcribe what
is transient, evanescent, contingent or impalpable?
The object is shaped by the voices of Adelaide Bannerman, Cecile Bargues, Jean Fisher, Sophie Orlando, Allison Thompson, and Sonia Boyce herself, focusing on several major collaborative performance-videos including Exquisite Cacophony, Paper Tiger Whisky Soap Theatre, and Crop Over.
This essay suggests new narratives about canonical artworks of the British Black art movement, such as Lubaina Himid's 1984 Freedom and Change, Eddie Chambers' 1980 Destruction of the National Front and Sonia Boyce's 1986 Lay Back keep Quiet and Think of What made Britain so great, interrogating their critical agency from an art historical perspective. These artworks, art historian Sophie Orlando argues, imply a critical analysis of Western art history.
Papers by Sophie Orlando
The book renders public and tangible the critical contribution of the Situations post workshop in the context of a workspace created at the Villa Arson (2014–2023), as well as the setting in motion of a body of collective, crossdisciplinary and ephemeral practices.These practices share collaborative and educational aspects, and aspects that belong to a continuum of institutional critique.
With:
Flo*Souad Benaddi, Karima El Karmoudi, Filles de Blédards, Nelle Gevers, HaYoung, Sarah Netter, H·Alix Sanyas, Ghita Skali, Silina Syan, gave rise to a prolific exchange between the textual and visual forms of authors Sara Ahmed, Annie Ernaux, Stuart Hall, Marielle Macé, Bonaventure Ndikung, Qalqalah Collective, Sayak Valencia, as well as artists M'barek Bouhchichi, Jagna Ciuchta, Nikolaus Gansterer, Stella Geppert, Laïla Hida, Maya Mihindou, Samir Ramdani, and Massinisa Selmani.
Editors: Nick Aikens, susan pui san lok, Sophie Orlando
Associate Editor: Janine Armin
Assistant Editor: Evelien Scheltinga
Contributors: Nick Aikens, Juan Albarrán, Lotte Arndt, Eva Bentcheva, Sonia Boyce, Jennifer Burris, Valerie Cassel Oliver, Laura Castagnini, Alice Correia, Sandra Delacourt,David Dibosa, Fabienne Dumont, Iris Dressler, E. C. Feiss, Annie Fletcher, Alexandra Kokoli, Charl Landvreugd,Elisabeth Lebovici, Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes, susan pui san lok, Sophie Orlando, Sumesh Sharma, Sarah Wilson, Wei Yu
co-notating, in other words the process of annotating,
and the creation of signs associatively transferred to
the essential. Nikolaus Gansterer’s research examines
our ability to grasp and to annotate our perceptions
using cognitive tools and a mooring in phenomenology.
His artistic production includes drawings, videos and
installations.
How to perceive one reality through another? How can
one note the density of something that evaporates as
soon as it has been felt? How can one transcribe what
is transient, evanescent, contingent or impalpable?
The object is shaped by the voices of Adelaide Bannerman, Cecile Bargues, Jean Fisher, Sophie Orlando, Allison Thompson, and Sonia Boyce herself, focusing on several major collaborative performance-videos including Exquisite Cacophony, Paper Tiger Whisky Soap Theatre, and Crop Over.
This essay suggests new narratives about canonical artworks of the British Black art movement, such as Lubaina Himid's 1984 Freedom and Change, Eddie Chambers' 1980 Destruction of the National Front and Sonia Boyce's 1986 Lay Back keep Quiet and Think of What made Britain so great, interrogating their critical agency from an art historical perspective. These artworks, art historian Sophie Orlando argues, imply a critical analysis of Western art history.
Also the full brochure, with text by Lilia Mestre, Alex Arteaga, Katrin Ströbel and Nikolaus Gansterer.
TEXTS Nick Aikens, Juan Albarrán, Lotte Arndt, Eva Bentcheva, Sonia Boyce, Jennifer Burris, Valerie Cassel Oliver, Laura Castagnini, Alice Correia, Sandra Delacourt, David Dibosa, Fabienne Dumont, Iris Dressler, E. C. Feiss, Annie Fletcher, Alexandra Kokoli, Charl Landvreugd, Elisabeth Lebovici, Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes,
susan pui san lok, Sophie Orlando, Sumesh Sharma, Sarah Wilson, Wei Yu
This e-book offers the findings of the conference ‘Conceptualism – Intersectional Readings, International Framings: Situating “Black Artists & Modernism” in Europe After 1968’ at the Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven, 7–9 December 2017, presented by Black Artists & Modernism in collaboration with the Van Abbemuseum.
ISBN 9789490757199