Elena Costelian

Elena Costelian was born in Romania, she lives and works in France.

From the near to the far, our longing for elsewhere shapes the way we perceive our surroundings. In this wandering, a path is traced, a line on a map. The reminiscence of the journey leaves an indelible imprint of a moment that is, in itself, ephemeral.
Elena Costelian’s work is rooted in a process linked to itinerancy and the exploration of specific territories. These geographical displacements are closely connected to the experience of exile.
Particularly sensitive to the relationship between collective and individual memory, the artist strives—through performances and theatrical installations—to render those barely perceptible instants in which strong emotions have been felt.
Sites marked by contemporary history and stripped of their original functions become the subject of her visual explorations, as she traverses and documents the territory, creating a sensitive cartography and reinterpretation of history.
Images of frozen moments—residues of History—which she seeks to reconstruct through large-scale installations. These reconstructions are never delivered in a faithful manner, but the realism through which they operate becomes a simulacrum of contemporary history.