Silvie Defraoui

Off Words is a new series of books featuring interviews with women artists from around the world. Editors Julie Enckell Juliard and Federica Martini offer these artists a format to speak about the sources and visions for their work, discuss the topics they engage with, and to elaborate on their view of the world in which they live and work. Over time, the series will offer a new, polyphonic narrative of art history, told by distinguished artists who actively shape this history through their work, thoughts, and teaching.

Silvie Defraoui, born 1935, is a pioneer of video art and of art education in her native Switzerland. Together with her late husband Chérif Defraoui (1932–94) she founded the legendary studio Média Mixte at Geneva’s École supérieure des Beaux- Arts (today HEAD–Genève). They also established the Archives du Futur, where they collected their jointly and individually created works in a range of media and offer a space for reflection on images, their status, and their potential for remembrance and anticipation. In recent years, she has been working with light projections and installations as well as with techniques such as ceramics and serigraphy.

Text in English and French.