Lou Masduraud

Biography
Lou Masduraud (b. 1990) is a French artist based in Geneva since 2012. She develops an expanded sculptural practice combining artisanal and experimental techniques, grotesque aesthetics, and a conceptual approach. Her work explores the spaces and practices of collective life, as well as the systems that make them possible. Through often context-specific installations, she investigates the visible and invisible infrastructures of the city, from electrical networks to sewers and underground spaces, as a means of questioning its norms and structures from a critical and feminist perspective. Recipient of the Swiss Art Award in 2024 and the Manor Cultural Prize Geneva in 2023, Masduraud has presented her work at MAMCO in Geneva, Kunsthaus Langenthal, Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Kunsthalle Basel, and the Lyon Biennale, among others.

Residency project
At La Becque, Lou Masduraud will research the technical systems and infrastructures involved in managing the waters of Lake Geneva, particularly the pumping stations that draw water from the lake. In doing so, she will approach the lake not as a landscape or natural resource, but as a reservoir integrated into the region’s infrastructural and energy networks. Through a civic and feminist reclaiming of technical knowledge, the project will examine our relationships of dependence on and control over our environments. Her research will also involve a punk and hands-on approach to learning plumbing and the workings of hydraulic pumps, enabling her to independently develop fountains conceived as political objects proposing counter-ideologies.