Emersions: A Living Archive 3 • Their Story(ies)

Emersion:
(From the Latin emergere)

The reappearance of a star that was eclipsed or obscured.
The state of a body that emerges from a fluid, from a medium. 

Le Petit Robert Dictionary, 2021

Emersions: A Living Archive is a long-term project that reveals the unique history of the Cité internationale des arts, a singular place of residence and artistic creation. It is based on the activation of archives – old and contemporary – to bring out a living memory that is constantly evolving.

To mark its sixtieth anniversary, the Cité internationale des arts is inaugurating the third part of this project on 21 May 2025.

Entitled Their Story(ies), this new edition is devoted to women and non-binary artists who have been in residence since 1965. This choice is part of a desire to make visible artistic careers that have long been marginalised. It reflects the commitment of the Cité, a place of hospitality par excellence, to supporting and promoting the diversity of experiences, voices and aesthetics that make up its richness.

It brings together archives of all kinds, notably from the Cité’s holdings, and personal accounts recounting the careers of 140 women and non-binary artists, among the 16,000 hosted over 60 years, weaving a constellation of narratives.

The aim here is to pay particular attention to the careers and practices of these women and non-binary artists, thanks to the archives linked to their residencies: over the past 60 years, artists of all practices (visual arts, music, performing arts, writing, architecture, film, etc.), nationalities and backgrounds have been supported in this unique place of hospitality and support that is the Cité internationale des arts. They are also artists of all generations who meet, live and work together.

In 1965 in France, the law of 13 July was enacted to allow women to open a bank account and work without the consent of their husbands. This law marked an important step in the emancipation of women in France and enabled many of them, particularly artists, to manage their finances, travel freely and pursue independent careers. The Cité internationale des arts, which opened two months before the law was passed, has played a role in this process of emancipation and affirmation of the place of women from all over the world in the arts. When it opened, 23.4% of the artists in residence were women. Over the decades, their presence has steadily increased, reaching 40.4% in 1995, then exceeding that of men for the first time in 2009.

It brings together archives of all kinds, notably from the Cité’s holdings, and personal accounts recounting the careers of 140 women and non-binary artists, among the 16,000 hosted over 60 years, weaving a constellation of narratives.

Today, 58% of the artists in residence at the Cité are women. This figure bears witness to the particular attention paid by the institution since 2017, as part of its new institutional project, in favour of equality and the ever-present visibility of the work of women and non-binary artists. This commitment is reflected both in the implementation of residency programmes (for example, the creation in 2024 of the Elles & Cité residency programme for women photographers) and in the content of the artistic and cultural programming (for example, in 2023, the group exhibition Défricheuses: féminismes, caméra au poing et archive en bandoulière). La Cité is an institution that has been run by women for 50 years, and in 2023 its team will be 39% female.