Ceysson & Bénétière

b. 1985, Paris, France

Lives and works in New York, NY

Education

2017    MFA Yale School of Art, Sculpture, New Haven, CT

2009    BFA Sculpture, National Superior School of Arts of Paris- Cergy, France

2005    Classe Préparatoire, Ateliers des Beaux- Arts de Paris, La Glacière, France

Bianca Abdi-Boragi works across media using sculpture, video, installation, and painting to enact representations of self and others, often using found materials and landscapes as receptacles to address different states of being, with a specific focus on alienation and territory.  Tending towards the absurd though with care and respect, her works respond to the contemporary political and social environment in the United States, France, and Algeria, engaging with themes of gender, subsistence, and migration while linking this moment to the historical repercussions of post-colonialism.
 
Bianca Abdi-Boragi is a French-Berber/ American interdisciplinary artist born and raised in Paris, France, who received her BFA from ENSAPC (Paris) and her MFA from Yale School of Art, Sculpture in 2017. Abdi-Boragi has been living in New York since 2010. Recently in residency at Pioneer Works her shows have been featured on Hyperallergic, Artnet, and The Brooklyn Rail, among others. Solo exhibitions include the Border Project Space Gallery and CADAF Art Fair, she has exhibited with GHOSTMACHINE, Central Part Tower's Penthouse, SPRING/BREAK Art Show, the Flux Factory, Heaven Gallery Chicago, the Immigrant Artist Biennial, NARS Foundation, The Border Project Space, VCU Arts, NURTUREart Gallery, Chashama Gallery, Field Project Gallery, Galerie Protégé, The Clemente Soto Velez Center NY, throughout the United States and internationally and has screened art films at Anthology Film Archive, UnionDocs, Video Revival, NY, the Whitney Humanity Center, and Loria Center, New Haven, CT. Abdi-Boragi was the recipient of the JUNCTURE Fellowship in Art and International Human Rights from the Yale Law School and was recently in residency at NARS Foundation and previously at MASS MoCA's studios, the Centquatre, Paris, France, Pact Zollverein, Essen, Germany, CalArts, Los Angeles.

Bianca Abdi-Boragi was born and raised in Paris by two migrant parents and became a migrant herself when she moved to New York to pursue a career in the arts. Place and heritage and their effect on identity, self-fulfillment, money, and family have always been primary concerns in her work. Abdi-Boragi’s introduction to the arts came at six years old when she was cast for a feature film. She observed the atmosphere of the extensive set every day like a phenomenon, where invented realities bloomed for the camera. That feeling of being in a space where the life of things was a malleable possibility profoundly shaped her desire to be an artist. She continued on this path for the rest of her formative years, studying theatre, philosophy, and art throughout high school and college. She obtained her BFA at ENSAPC in Paris; she then moved to New York to continue her development as an artist and filmmaker and complete her education, enrolling in Yale’s MFA Program amidst encouraging success in the visual art world.

Film and video are Abdi-Boragi’s main focus, but she likes to incorporate and play with other mediums such as sculpture, performance, and acting. Her work considers the relationship of the social world to the private, psychological one. She likes to create diverse characters evolving in absurd situations to explore environmental and emotional reactions and the evolving process of being a person. She wants to create videos that can express something ephemeral, ineffable, a state or an emotion that is maybe difficult to describe other than the way it manifests itself visually. Her films are like visual poems with no head or tail; they are pieces of an incomplete puzzle, leaving enough room for imagination. She is the kind of artist who responds to life itself. Shape a bit of experience from her private interest into a tale with meaning for an external viewer. Humor is often a big part of her work, acting as a hook to get people involved and offer a point of entry.

She views her work as video performance and experimental cinema. Instead of using the theatre standards usually displayed in performance art, she subscribes to cinemas. She likes to be behind the camera plotting shots and performances, setting a series of people and ideas in motion. Artists like Bill Viola, Matthew Barney, Pina Bausch, Francis Alÿs, directors like David Lynch and Federico Fellini have all been highly influential on her work.

Exhibitions

2024       

A Private Viewing, Charmoli Ciarmoli Gallery, New York, NY

Invisible Bodies, Penn University, curated by Emireth Hererra and The Border Space Project,  Pennsylvania

2023       

Bodies, Bronx Art Space, curated by Amanda Johnson, NY

Whispers, SPRING/BREAK Art Show, curated by Emireth Hererra, NY

Here, There, screening, curated by Sarah Lasley, Designhaus Damrstadt, Germany

Wildflowers, The Artist Gardener, curated by Bruna D'Alessandro, NY

Secret Show, SPRING/Break Art show Salon, New York, NY

Bodies | Object | Product | Agency, curated by Amanda Johnson, Triangle Loft, New York, NY

Body Memory, GHOSTMACHINE, New York, NY

Horizons,  curated by Natasha Roberts, Central Park Tower, New York, NY

2022       

Vector, Heaven Gallery, Chicago, IL

Naked Lunch, SPRING/BREAK ART SHOW, New York, NY

Bodily Integrity, The Border space Project,  New York, NY

Phone Home, Ukraine Fundraiser, Grace Exhibition Space, New York, NY

Ors, Occupy Art Project, French Consulate, New York, NY

2021       

Uniforms for the End of Time, Chashama Gallery, New York, NY

Dough, Hera Gallery, South Kingstown, RI, 

Hearsay: Heresy, SPRING/BREAK Art Show, New York, NY

Staying Inn, Heaven Gallery, Chicago, IL​

Din Din's Missing Luncheon, Flux Factory, New York, NY

Checkerboard Borders: Films of the Global South, online, Wofford College

Sexy Sex, Online, Gallery Perchée

2020     

The Heel of the Loaf, The Border Project Space, New York, NY _SOLO  

The Imminent Arrival, The Immigrant Artist Biennial, TIAB, New York, NY

CADAF, Contemporary and Digital Art Fair, SOLO

March of Time, Friday Studio Gallery, New York, NY

2019     

Video Object, Video Snack VII, VCU Arts, Grace St Theater, Richmond, VA     

Commingling: Dialogues, ZXY Gallery, New York, NY

Ex Abrupto Film Festival, Nomadic Collective Art, Moià, Spain

Here: A Bit of Everywhere and Everyone They've Been, NARS Foundation, New York, NY

Specter in the Threshold, The Border Project Space, New York, NY

Rock, Paper, Scissors, Comisionado Dominicano, New York, NY

2018     

Talking Pictures, 106 Van Buren, New York, NY

For Lease, Call for Details, Creative Space for Lease, Los Angeles, CA

OUTTHERE, Filo Sofi Art, New York, NY 

Intricate Neighbor II, Galerie Protégé, New York, NY

Intricate Neighbor, The Border Project Space, New York, NY

Video Now Now Now 2018, Herman B. Wells Library, Bloomington, IN

Fig de Barbary, New-York Forum of Amazigh Film, awarded 2nd best short, La Guardia Center for Performing Arts, New York, NY

2017     

Interact, Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Education Center, New York, NY

Say- so, EIK Gallery, Yale School of Art Gallery, New Haven, CT

MFA Thesis show, Green Hall Gallery, New haven, CT

Mutocospio Film Festival , Puebla, Mexico

Ladies Eat Cakes, Girl on Girl Collective, Video Revival, Brooklyn, NY

New Filmmakers, Anthology Film Archive, 2017, New York, NY

Yale Student Film Festival, Yale Film Alliance, New Haven, CT

2016   

Esoteric Rodeo, Green Hall Gallery, New Haven, CT

Merry Goes Round, Yve Yang Gallery, Boston, MA

Me Gusta el Sonido, Art Space, New Haven, CT

Arts Mixer, Afro- American Cultural Center, New Haven, CT

Benefit Auction, Field Project Gallery, New York, NY

Expo 35, BJ Spoke Galley, curated by Mary Potter, NY

Feminist Cineclub, Algiers, Algeria

Translations- Kolkata, Rabindranath Tagore Centre, Kolkata, India

Yale Student Film Festival, Whitney Humanity Center, New Haven, CT

Genealogies, curated by John Edmond, Green Hall Gallery, New Haven, CT

2015   

The Gates Are Open, Green Hall Gallery, New Haven, CT

Video Mixer, curated by Allyn Hughes, Green Hall Gallery  New Haven, CT

Katra Film Series, New-York, NY

The Portrait Collection, Fifth Annual Exposure Award, Louvre Museum, Paris, France

Future Memories, Reconstruction of New Identities, Palazzo Ca' Zanardi, 2015, Venice, Italy

Translations, curated by Geraldine Ondrizek, Feldenheimer Gallery, Portland, OR

Tributary, Verum Ultimum Gallery, Portland, OR

2014   

Material Matters, Union Street Gallery, Chicago, IL

Inside Out, Verum Ultimum Gallery, Portland, OR

Making Space, Gibney Gallery, New York, NY

The SEED, Chashama Gallery, New York, NY

Contextiles-Isations, Kalopsia Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland

Videorover 7, Pratt DDA Gallery, New York, NY

Last Minute but Forever First, Parenthesis Art Space, New York, NY

Videorover 7, NURTUREart Gallery, 2014, New York, NY

2010   

Digital Chiaroscuro, Brooklyn Fireproof, New York, NY

Occupation, Louvrais Theatre, Cergy, France

Chapitre V, Le Voyage des Plantes, Maubuisson Abbey Art Center, France

Performance

2016   

Workin Like A, Yve Yang Gallery, Merry goes Round, Boston, MA