Tania Gheerbrant “Social Insecurity”
Solo show at Salzburg Kunstverein, curated by Mirela Baciak.
https://salzburger-kunstverein.at/
In Social Insecurity, Tania Gheerbrant stages a material confrontation with the long history of mental health as a tool of social control. Drawing connections between the witch hunts of early modern Europe, the birth of psychiatric institutions, and the systemic repression of marginalized communities today, her exhibition examines how ideas of “normalcy” have always served political ends — and how they continue to shape the precarious architectures of solidarity. The reference to Thomas Szasz’s critique of psychiatric power frames the exhibition, but Tania moves beyond his writing to activate a living history. Rather than treating archives as static repositories, she treats them as raw material: petals for sculptural lamps, textures for murals, verses for collective reading. Her method refuses the clinical gaze, instead reassembling stories of resistance among those labeled mad.
Upon entering, visitors encounter a mural in low light—silhouettes of familiar figures, half-forgotten by official histories. The flowers made from archival prints, the DIY newspaper aesthetics, the tactile visibility of histories usually hidden or sanitized. By reactivating the discarded and overlooked, Gheerbrant insists on forms of memory that are not merely illustrative, but insurgent.
As states retreat into privatized, individualistic models of care, and as new forms of authoritarianism encroach on daily life, the question Gheerbrant raises in Social Insecurity is blunt: who will be left to die quietly next time? In tracing the continuities between witch hunts, fascist psychiatric abuses, and contemporary “managed” insecurity, she makes clear that what is at stake is not only mental health, but the very conditions of collective life.
This exhibition is conceived in collaboration with Frac Bretagne, Rennes as Tania Gheerbrant is the 2024 winner of the Frac Bretagne-Art Norac Award.
Exhibition views Tania Gheerbrant, Social Insecurity, 2025. Conceived in collaboration with Frac Bretagne, Rennes as Tania Gheerbrant is the 2024 winner of the Frac Bretagne-Art Norac
Award. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: kunst-dokumentation
Twin in the clouds and other stories
- (In production) Directed by Tania Gheerbrant - 2025 - creative documentary - France - 18 min - HD colour.
Gaspard, Jaj, Anna and Alexeï share an intimate knowledge of hearing voices. Facing the camera or on a forest walk, they lead us on their unique path to recovery. Reversing the stigma, reinventing their lives - can poetry reverse a diagnosis? From now on, they will be experts rather than patients – they are voice hearers.
Over two years Tania Gheerbrant took part in the monthly meetings of the Hearing Voices Network at a Maison des Associations in Paris. This network operates as a support system based on the principle of peer exchange.
It enables people to share their experiences while fighting against all forms of discrimination related to mental health.
The desire to make a film grew out of these encounters. “Twin in the clouds and other stories” carefully tells these tales of emancipation and consequently contrasts the main diagnoses and narratives of psychiatry today.
Directed by Tania Gheerbrant
With:
Alexeï Jeretic - Anna Jeretic - Jaj - Oscar Bonnet ( Gaspard)
Camera & Color Grading: Dominik Zietlow
Sound and editing: Tania Gheerbrant
Music: Diego Alorda - Constantin Jopeck - Hubert felix thiefaine
Voice over: Margot Nguyen
Fleurs de l’histoire, 2024, produced with the support of Drac Idf and Palais de Tokyo.
Exhibition: Toucher l’insensé, cur. François Piron, assisted by Romane Tassel, Palais de Tokyo. 2024.Extending this project, Tania Gheerbrant’s Fleurs de l’histoire investigates anti-psychiatric patient collectives from the 1970s, with the aim of shedding light on the systems of oppression that operate in both medical and carceral institutions. They weave an artistic genealogy between the still-active Entendeurs de voix movement and these 1970s collectives.
Dans cette lignée, Tania Gheerbrant déploie avec ses Fleurs de l’histoire une recherche sur les collectifs de patient.es anti-psychiatriques dans les années 70, visant à mettre en lumière les systèmes d’oppression à l’œuvre dans les institutions, aussi bien médicales que carcérales.
Ces archives incluent les revues françaises Gardes-fous, Psychiatrisés en lutte publiée par le GIA (Groupe Informations Asiles), mais aussi in a Nutshell, revue du MPA (Mental Patients Association) de Vancouver à partir de 1971, ou encore celles du groupe révolutionnaire SPK (Collectif Socialiste de Patients), fondé à la clinique de Heidelberg au début des années 1970. Dans la lignée de ces initiatives, fondées sur le partage d’informations et d’expériences, l’artiste nous invite à nous asseoir et à découvrir certaines de ces revues.
Contribution in PLS Palais de Tokyo's Magazine du 2024
Nuts in shell
2024, solo exhibition at Kulturfogel , Zürich, CHNuts in shell presents the results of Tania Gheerbrant’s residency at Index Freiraum Zurich and it is the French artist’s first solo exhibition in Switzerland. The title evokes either the metaphoric image of a brain, a slang word for a “crazy” person or the expression “a nutshell” that means «to make a long story short.» What the exhibition actually refers to is the magazine In a nutshell, published by the Mental Patient Association in Vancouver during the 1970s.
For the past two years, Tania Gheerbrant has been carrying out historical research and compiling archives on anti-psychiatric patient collectives. By re-editing and sampling the material she gives her investigations a visual and graphic form. During her residency, Gheerbrant focused on printing and publishing techniques to create an environment capable of projecting us into the atmosphere of these archives. Using silk screen printing, paper, fabric, cardboard and mirrored foil, the artist creates a light, airy scenography. The ephemeral, poetic fragility of the chosen materials underlines the fleeting impact of patient collectives in a historic context, however powerful they may have been in a certain point in time.
The political aspect of these anti-psychiatric positions is underlined by the slogans scattered across the posters, luring our curiosity to take the time to consult the archives present in the space. Largely unpublished or circulated in restricted circles, these magazines are finding a second life in this particular context. Reflecting our disciplinary society, this counter-history of madness analyzes the mechanisms of alienation that affect us all.
- Alliteration, Tania Gheerbrant, 2024, cardboard, mirror paper, two channel videos in loop.
- It’s a nutshell, Tania Gheerbrant, 2024, silkscreen prints on A3 paper and mirror paper, variable format.
- Manufacture of Madness, Tania Gheerbrant, 2024, silk screen printed shirt.
- The shoes of my imagination are too tight, Tania Gheerbrant, 2024, small 3d printed shoes, paper cut-outs.
Notes for a scene & Sound of a scene,
2023, produced with the support of Drac Idf and Fondation de France.Exhibition: How do we learn to find each other? Au Lieu, cur. Noélia Portela, Paris, 2023.
Sound of a scene, 2023, audio tape, speakers and personnal Archives from antipsychatriques patients groups (original editions)
produced with the support of DRAC d’Île-de-France - Aide Individuelle à la Création 2022.
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, 2023, electrical & steal cables, glass light bulb, variable dimensions
Exhibition view 2023_ How do we learn to find each other ? Au Lieu, cur. Noélia Portela, Paris, FR
Notes for a scene, poem-posters, 2023, inkjet printing on 115g paper, 90 x 67.5 cm each, produced with the support of DRAC d’Île-de-France - Aide Individuelle à la Création 2022. Exhibition view 2023_ How do we learn to find each other? Au Lieu, cur. Noélia Portela, Paris, FR
Tania Gheerbrant’s works are constantly shaped by a movement, oscillating between construction and deconstruction. In this way, the enchanting, ambivalent spaces created by the artist can be seen as poetic spaces of social and political negotiaspaces negotiation. Philosophy, psychoanalysis, cinema tion. or society and its techno-liberal excesor excesses are as much the script material ses as the background subjects of the fictions that form the core of her works. In the exhibition, Tania displays in a poetic way the research linked to her film Twin the in the clouds and other storiesother stories - a long-term research project within a collective of (mental health) patients.
This collective gathers voice hearers. Very far from the linguishearers. linguistic diagnosis of the asylum, it is a tic group discussion, where collective discourses and exchanges compose the treatment itself. In Fleurs de L’histoireL’histoire the documentation on display, largely unpublished, is made up of a wide variety of materials: photographs, poem, articles, drawings, postcards, letters & reports to be found inside the anti-psychiatry magazines, from the 70’. These documagazines, documents come from three different ments collectives of patients, the Mental Patients Association from Vancouver, the SPK (Socialist Patient Collective) from Heidlberg and Garde-fou (a Pari’s from Parisian review) accompanied by cassette sian recording by a hearer and his mother, a few weeks before the show. These poems can be found in the Nutshell magazine, and have been translated into French by the artist and prininto printed on posters made specifically for ted the exhibition. The reenacted sound allows us to position ourselves in a sensitive way in real time when the poems were written, by assembling her research materials in a sculpture-like installation she repositions them as central in their own storytelling.
Les œuvres de Tania Gheerbrant sont constamment façonnées par un mouvement, oscillant entre construction et déconstruction. Ainsi, les espaces enchanteurs et ambivalents créés par l’artiste peuvent être considérés comme des espaces poétiques de négociation sociale et politique. La philosophie, la psychanalyse, le cinéma ou la société et ses excès techno-libéraux sont autant le matériau scénaristique que les sujets d’arrière-plan des fictions qui forment le cœur de ses œuvres.
Dans l’exposition, Tania propose des œuvres poétiquement et visuellement fortes issues de ses recherches préparatoires pour son film Twin the in the clouds and other stories. Ce projet de recherche à long terme, elle le même au sein d’un collectif de patients (en santé mentale) : “Les entendeurs de voix”. Bien loin du diagnostic linguistique de l’asile, il s’agit d’un groupe de parole, où les discours et les échanges collectifs composent le traitement lui-même.
Dans l’exposition Tania déploie ainsi toute une généalogie foisonnante de groupes anti-psychiatriques, remplaçant sa recherche actuelle dans une histoire des plus larges des mouvements militants en santé mentale.
Par exemple, dans Fleur de L’histoire, la documentation exposée est en grande partie oubliée ou peu diffusée. L’artiste présente alors au specteur.ice une profusion de matériaux : photographies, poèmes, articles, dessins, cartes postales, lettres; marqués par l’émulation graphique, poétique et bien sûr militante de ces revues anti-psychiatriques des années 70.
Ces documents proviennent de trois collectifs de patients, la Mental Patients Association de Vancouver, le SPK (Socialist Patient Collective) de Heidlberg et Gardes-fous ( une revue parisienne). Accompagnant la Fleur de l’histoire, un enregistrement de lecture de poèmes par un entendeur et sa mère est diffusé en boucle dans l’exposition.
Les dingues et les paumé.e.s,
2023, Commissionned by Bally Foundation , Exhibition : Un lac inconnu, cur. Vittoria Matarrese, assisted by Alexandra Goullier Lhomme
and Isabella D’Aprile. Bally Foundation, Lugano, CH
Pour mieux plonger les visiteurs dans cet univers, l’artiste réalise une installation contemplative face au paysage renvoyant tant au boudoir qu’au divan psychanalytique : s’asseoir sur ce double banc implique d’accepter de s’immerger dans les eaux troubles d’un lac inconnu brouillant les frontières entre documentaire et fiction, réel et imaginaire.
Trois lentilles vidéo sont insérées à même l’assise tels des hublots vers des vies intérieures.
Ce défilé d’histoires, d’images et de sons s’inspire des témoignages d’entendeurs et entendeuses de voix, à l’instar du récit de Jaj qui, en plus de relater son expérience au sein d’un entretien capté, interprète dans le film une réécriture de la chanson Les Dingues et les Paumés sur un air de clarinette joué par Constantin Jopeck. Le montage introduit aussi le récit d’Aimée F., incarné par Jany Lauga, qui conte ses conversations avec des oiseaux. Le tout s’entremêle, de manière organique, à des vues de paysages réalisées par l’artiste à Lugano, tissant un lien poétique fort entre nature et psyché, eau et folie. Et c’est dans ce jeu d’échos que remontent des questions ou qu’émergent des doutes redéfinissant notre entendement de ce que l’on nomme « santé mentale ». Via ces flots de pensées et de voix, l’artiste invite ainsi à une réflexion intime sur la manière dont nous appréhendons la réalité, physiquement et émotionnellement. Finalement, dans chacune de ces lentilles, ce sont un peu des paysages inconscients des visiteurs qui se reflètent.
To better immerse visitors in this universe, the artist creates a contemplative installation facing the landscape referring to both the boudoir and the psychoanalytic couch: sitting on this double bench implies agreeing to immerse oneself in the troubled waters of an unknown lake blurring the boundaries between documentary and fiction, the real and the imaginary. Three video lenses are inserted in the seat like portholes to inner lives. This parade of stories, images and sounds is inspired by the testimonies of people who hear voices, like the story of Jaj who, in addition to recounting his experience in a recorded interview, performs a rewriting of the song ‘Les Dingues et les Paumés’ over a clarinet tune played by Constantin Jopeck in the film. The montage also introduces the story of Aimée F., played by Jany Lauga, who talks about her conversations with birds. The whole piece is intertwined organically with landscape views created by the artist in Lugano, weaving a strong poetic link between nature and psyche, water and madness. And it is in this game of echoes that questions arise or doubts emerge redefining our understanding of what is called “mental health”. Through these flows of thoughts and voices, the artist invites an intimate reflection on how we comprehend reality, physically and emotionally. Finally, in each of these lenses, a bit of the unconscious landscapes of the visitors is reflected.
Les dingues et les paumé.e.s, 2023, Tania Gheerbrant, 2023, Commissionned by Bally Foundation , Wood, fabrics, dyes, glass lenses, chrome metal, screens, three video channels, 12 min (in loop).
Voice hearer 1 and Singer: Jaj - Voice hearer 2 (fiction) : Jany Lauga - Camera and color grading: Dominik Zietlo - Mixing and musical rewriting: Diego Alorda - Clarinet: Constantin Jopeck - Voice-over (English): Felipe Vasque - Original music (rewritten): Les Dingues et les Paumés, Hubert-Félix Thiéfaine. Video coding-synchronization: Max Blotas