Steffani Jemison

The American artist examines the physical and political phenomena that paralyse or move us, while considering gravity and weight as forces that either hold us back or set us free.

Steffani Jemison presents a new sculpture, developed during her residency at Lafayette Anticipations, as part of an installation that includes new video work exploring movement and orientation tools. She brings multiple temporalities into play, mapping the intersections between the geographies of violence and practices of liberation. The artist invites us to question our perspectives and consider journeys that do not follow predefined paths, but are rather driven only by our impulses.

Here, the atmosphere is not simply a setting or a meteorological phenomenon, but an experience: a climate charged with history, memory, and invisible tensions. It affects bodies, shapes trajectories, and influences directions. The exhibition becomes a space in which our attention is drawn to these imperceptible currents, where gestures arise through the friction between gravity and desire, immobility and shock. In this shifting environment, each movement becomes a way of living differently, of reinventing coordinates and improvising forms of presence.

Curator: Caroline Honorien

Cover image: Research still, video work-in-progress (2025) © Steffani Jemison

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The Galeries Lafayette group was the official partner of the Emergence sector until 2024, for which Lafayette Anticipations awarded a prize to an artist in the sector each year. Chosen by an international jury, the laureate artist produces a work presented at the Fondation the following year. Steffani Jemison is the 2024 laureate.