Trained in visual arts, circus, and puppetry at the École nationale supérieure des arts de la marionnette in Charleville-Mézières, Élise Vigneron has developed a creative language at the crossroads of visual art, theatre, and movement.

Her performances often draw inspiration from emblematic literary works, which she translates for the stage through a poetic, visual, and metaphorical language made of images, materials, sounds, gestures, and sometimes words. The notions of metamorphosis and in-betweenness inhabit her work, taking shape through the staging of ephemeral materials. Each project questions anew the audience’s perception and place through specific scenic setups that foster a shared, sensory experience.

Élise Vigneron is the 2026 laureate of the Villa Kujoyama in Kyoto for a residency in collaboration with dancer and choreographer Azusa Takeuchi.

She regularly collaborates with artists and researchers from diverse backgrounds: theatre directors Argyro Chioti, Tibo Gebert, and Julika Mayer; choreographers Anne Nguyen and Satchie Noro; circus artists Eleonora Gimenez, Marion Collet, and Fanny Soriano; dramaturgs Marion Stoufflet and Manon Worms; musicians Thibault Perriard, Émilie Lesbros, Pascal Charrier, Robin Finker, and Julien Tamisier; and scientists such as glaciologist Maurine Montagnat and climatologist Xavier Fain

She is currently an associated artist at La Halle aux grains, scène nationale de Blois (41) and at Théâtre de Châtillon (92). She is also an artiste compagnon at Théâtre Joliette, scène conventionnée art et création – expressions et écritures contemporaines in Marseille (13), and an artiste complice at Le Vélo Théâtre, années n+1 – scène conventionnée in Apt (84).

Élise Vigneron has received several major distinctions for her work as a puppeteer and director:

2022 – TRAVERSÉES received the Young Critics Award at the 21st International Puppet Festival in Bielsko-Biała, Poland.

2019 – She was awarded the International Creation / Experimentation Prize by the Institut International de la Marionnette.

2018 – ANYWHERE received the Henry Bauchau Prize.

2017 – ANYWHERE won the Vice Major Award at the International Festival of Ostrava in the Czech Republic.

2011 – TRAVERSÉES received both the Innovative Show Award and the Scenography Award at the International Festival of Lleida in Spain.

Néle Azevedo is an artist and researcher with a Master’s degree in Visual Arts from the Institute of Arts at UNESP. Since 1998, she has worked across visual arts, presenting solo and group exhibitions as well as large-scale urban interventions. Her practice explores the role of public monuments, climate urgency, and the political-poetic potential of collective space.

She is the creator of Minimum Monument, an urban intervention project that began in São Paulo and examines the function of monuments in contemporary cities alongside the pressing issues of global warming. Since 2005, Minimum Monument has been realised in 28 cities worldwide, including Germany, France, England, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Taiwan and China. Notable presentations include: • Gendarmenmarkt – Berlin (2009) • Stavanger Biennial – Norway (2010) • Chamberlain Square – Birmingham, Centenary of World War I (2014) • Nuit Blanche – Paris (2015) • Feverish World Symposium – University of Vermont, USA (2018) • Giardino degli Aranci – Rome, Festa di Roma (2020) • Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall – Taipei, Nuit Blanche (2023) • Heuvelplein – Tilburg, Kaapstad Festival (2024)

Widely documented by the press and by the public, the images of these interventions have achieved international circulation, extending her recognition beyond the traditional contemporary art field.

Azevedo also developed Suspended State, an installation featuring ice sculptures suspended by threads, illuminated to highlight dripping, cracking and melting. The amplified sound of the melting process creates a rhythmic and temporal experience that raises questions about the body, subjectivity and the existential threats posed by global warming. Her practice also includes urban interventions such as Glória às lutas inglórias, Anhangabaú: um rio para os ausentes and Piracema Urbana, all rooted in local histories. These ephemeral and process-based works arise from the continuous experience of melting and disappearance, leading the artist to a radical understanding of art as process — a living organism.— grounded in encounter, exchange and political-poetic action. From 2017 to 2021, she participated in the collective that founded the Kitchen of the 9 de Julho Occupation and the Reocupa Gallery (both linked to the MSTC housing movement). From 2021 to 2023, she co-led art workshops for children at the Occupation. She currently runs Espaço Vitrine, a space dedicated to artistic exchange, contemporary art practices and cultural experimentation.

Selected Recent Projects

2025–2026 — Memorie del Sottosuolo, Museo di Scienze e Archeologia, Rovereto, Italy

2024 — Frictions – Habiter la Terre, Imagespassages, Annecy, France

2024 — Kaapstad Tilburg Festival, Heuvelplein, Tilburg, Netherlands

2024 — Narni Città Teatro, Centro Storico di Narni, Italy

2023 — Nuit Blanche Taipei, Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall, Taiwan

2023 — Examples to Follow!, Uferhallen, Berlin, Germany

2022–2023 — Campus Antropoceno Brasil, Goethe-Institut Porto Alegre

2019 — Art and Sustainability Forum, Beijing Riverside Art Museum, China

2018 — Feverish World Symposium, University of Vermont, USA