“Art is what makes life more interesting than art.” Robert Filliou 1926-1987

Lou Galopa’s (born 1975 in Colmar, France) artistic work has a connection with Fluxus: the humor, the utopias and the endless link between art and life. Galopa faces the world around her with innocence, curiosity and analytical gaze. She explores the surroundings, meets new people, collects and changes experiences and encounters new things she then transforms and absorbs to her works.

Galopa’s practice is often based on free association. There is always space for coincide. Objects that seem unrelated at first sight suddenly look like having suprising connections. Visual relations, interconnections, double images and word plays have an important role in her works. They often have a humouristic, ironic or sarcastic character but can also reveal even tragic notions.

Lou Galopa is artist-in-residence at HIAP during March-April 2008. In the beginning of her stay she travelled to Tallinn by boat, to document life on a cruise ship. This trip resulted in a video installation and an installation built out of beer wrappings found on the street. She is collecting trash, reusing it and creating new meanings.

During the first month Galopa kept visual diary that is presented as an installation in the exhibition. The personal impressions grow to an extended mindmap and a documentary on the process of getting familiar with a new context.

While in residency Galopa has been closely collaborating with Sandra Mann, also artist-in-residence at HIAP during March-May 2008. Galopa and Mann realised a joint project at Cable Factory with the idea of bringing transparency to the building. They knocked on the doors of the studios and visited people at work, aiming to investigate the social atmosphere in the building. The documentary video from the project is shown at HIAP Lounge.

Lou Galopa lives in Strasbourg and Paris. She studied at Ecole supérieure des arts decoratifs de Strasbourg and is a member of the artist group Interim.

The residency is a collaboration between HIAP and CEAAC Strasbourg.