Issue 8, Profiles

Elise Peroi

An Endless Search for Connection

Words VALENTINA BUZZI

Photography MARGAUX SENLIS

French artist Elise Peroi lives and breathes through the gesture of weaving, a feeling that she hopes to emulate when her work is presented to an audience. Her aerial textile creations, intricately woven from countless threads, are enriched by gouache and acrylic paintings depicting motifs inspired by nature, poetry, or literature and exude an architectural elegance. Existing in a continuous dialogue with the surrounding space and activated by the audience, Peroi’s woven sculptures reveal embodied transparencies that engage our gaze, open our perception to other bodies present, and evoke emotional responses to the space.

Elise Peroi was born in Nantes, a city in Western France where whispers of rich history dance along the edge of the Loire, the country’s second-largest river. At the age of 12, she was already immersed in fabric work, creating textile books and contemplating such material through poetry. Her mother, a dressmaker, introduced her to the art of textile and sewing—a practice that has since become an essential tool for the artist’s well-being, shaping what could be considered Peroi’s philosophy of practice. For Peroi, the act of weaving is understood as a complete bodily experience, one in which she dances with the void, creating what she refers to as the “breadth” between herself and the countless threads that compose her artworks.

“Weaving is not necessarily easy or pleasing; at times, it can be contradictory. But for me, it has become a necessity. It is a moment where I merge with the repetitive movements I must practice, where I can focus and encounter emptiness. In a way, it’s both a performance and a meditation—a means of experiencing absence while being fully present.” Peroi has completed training in Qigong, a traditional Chinese practice combining movement, meditation, and controlled breathing exercises based on the concept of Qi (or Chi)—the vital energy believed to flow through the body. Following discussions with experts, she became intrigued by its parallels with weaving and how its principles can be applied to the arts. For the artist, the act of weaving raises broader anthropological questions: the relationship between body and space, the presence of a body in the world, and the emotions that we perceive in relation to our surroundings.

Her interest in the relational aspects of the arts led Peroi to embark on various collaborations with artists practicing in the realms of music, dance, theater, and performance. “I discovered that there was an interesting equilibrium between my practice and theirs. Through these collaborations, the artwork was not anymore a scenical decoration, an accessory, but it lived and was activated by the performance.” In Rhythm and Breath, performed in 2016 at Les Halles de Schaerbeek, and in 2017 at the Hong Kong Arts Center, in collaboration with choreographer and dancer Mui Cheuk-Yin, Peroi created a suspended structure in which bamboo curtains would criss-cross. Above them, a sensor recorded the noise made by the bamboo canes bumping together as they were handled and moved by both Peroi and Mui, creating alternating rhythm and movement, performing a conversation between ancient gestures of weaving and dancing.