Nesin Insen
FR
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2024
2024
2023
2023
©2025 Nesin Insen
Credit photo: Vincent Drouin
Bio
Nesin Insen was born in Tunis and is based in Wendake-Nionwentsïo (Quebec City). Their multimedia work, which includes video, sound and performance, has been showcased in various locations, including Wendake-Nionwentsïo, Brussels, Linz, Montreal and online.
In 2023, their work was featured in the group exhibition DENSE/DENSE at Laval University, for which they received a scholarship from the René-Richard Foundation and the Inter/Le Lieu prize.
In 2024, they were awarded a scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) to pursue their Master's degree in visual arts at Laval University.
Process
I use various methods to activate my body and explore the experience of identity (sameness) and ipseity (selfhood). Through speech, movement and action, I probe my psychosomatic memory and relate it to objects, people and environments. In doing so, I bring forth memories and modulate their ways of relating to the world through improvisation. I observe this infinite sway between what stays the same and what mutates in me and around me. I advocate for the notion of a creative transformation that plays with the (im)permanent characteristics of the experience of the self. Among other things, I am interested in speech in French, English and Tunisian. I deconstruct them and pay attention to the transformative powers of their hybridization, notably through automatic writing or audio and video editing. This work is mainly results in sound poems and pieces, videos, texts and performances. They mix phonemes and expressions, speech and writing, hearing and sight, in ways that confuse languages together and my perceptions of them. French words are pronounced in Arabic, Arabic words are written in English, and new hybrid words are born from these perceptual confusions.
I am also interested in the relationships between the body and audiovisual media. I investigate the tangible, tactile and proprioceptive characteristics of the experience of a recording or diffusion device. I use various strategies aimed at highlighting the physicality of cameras, microphones, tablets, VR headsets, etc. This can involve exploiting the reflection of an electronic tablet rather than the integrated camera to generate an image; overexposing a projected image using external light sources; or simply manipulating a camera as if it were an abstract mass. I thus approach these devices as full and unified objects, regardless of their internal components. I seek to subvert these consumer-accessible devices, to find other ways of interacting with them, making them instruments that call for attention and unfolding of the body.
Having an unclear relationship with my identity, especially as an immigrant, I seek to spark the moments where I come undone and reform, where my experience of the world comes together and falls apart again. These endless, inevitable movements, I nurture and celebrate.