Nesin Insen
FR
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2024
2024
2023
2023
©2026 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 explore the embodiment of my identities through various methods. Using speech, movement, action art, and encounters, I delve into my psychosomatic memories, connecting them with objects, people, and surroundings. Through improvisation, I bring these mental and physical memories to the surface and reshape how they relate to the world. My practice is deeply process-driven, allowing me to witness the constant dance between what remains constant and what evolves within and around me.For several years, I’ve been working with language—French, English, and Tunisian—breaking them down and exploring the transformative power that emerges when they blend. My work centers on automatic writing, vocal improvisation, and audio-video editing. This results in poems, sound pieces, videos, texts, and performances that mix sounds, expressions, spoken word, and writing, as well as hearing and sight, blurring the lines between languages and how I perceive them. French words might be spoken in Arabic, Arabic words written in English, creating new hybrid words born from these playful overlaps.
More recently, I’ve been engaged in what I call “topoetic” research—a blend of topography and poetics. It’s an intuitive and practical exploration of how I physically relate to the world through touch and body awareness. This work focuses on the shapes and textures of bodies, how they interact physically, and the emotional and sensory potential these encounters reveal. Sometimes these moments are fleeting; other times, they take form in video performances.
My complex experience of identity, shaped largely by immigration, has driven me to develop different ways to navigate the relationships between my various identities—those that feel permanent and those that are evanescent. I see my artistic practice as an ongoing process of rebuilding and redefining myself, marked by cycles where my experience of the world settles and then transforms.