Q&A

Noé Grenier

What’s your background?

I was born in a high mountain hamlet in 1987 and I grew up between the Alps and the southwest of France. I started working with moving images at the Beaux Arts de Montpellier from which I graduated in 2011. After three years in Brussels, I then continued my studies at the Fresnoy Studio National des arts Contemporain. I am associate artist at La Malterie in Lille where I am based, while travelling frequently to Italy.

What influences you artistically?

Here is a tentative list of things that inspire me :
mode of human transport, evolution of the screens, tornadoes and natural risks, old matte painting, Don Quichotte and the problem of reality, how the memory works, stories of plagiarism, the idea of cyclic time, migraine trips, sound poetry, the movement of the mountains, science fiction and the speed of light.

How do you start a new work?

Each project starts in a different way. Some works like my last film The Following images never happened impose themselves to me through a strong necessity of creation and experimentation. Other projects come from an in-depth research over a long period of time, like the short story Le Tardif and the film The Sunstill.


In my collaborative projects with Gilles Ribero and Gwendal Sartre, our ideas for exhibitions and films come from conversations and crossed interests between our personal works.

What are you working on right now?

I am at the beginning of a new project, a documentary temporarily called “Patine et lacune” dealing with the restoration and conservation of old films and paintings.