Artists in residence

Shilpa Chavan’s work is the culmination of the visual diaspora, where concepts and influences range from the desire to travel, memories and the need to push boundaries.  Her work is inspired by local influences and observations, where pieces from each collection use a variety of raw materials, merging ideas gathered through travel and multicultural interactions. Each experience, from the sensory to the subconscious, is made individually.
                                              

Using fashion as a basis, different media such as style, photography, hat making, videography and artistic installations are used to form a spectrum of collective design. Whatever the current concept, her work is intended to be a friend of science and love. This is done with a neoteric discernment, while maintaining a love for nostalgia and romanticism. Reinvent and therefore rediscover “The Age of Wonders”.

Youssef Chebbi is a young author-director born in Tunisia in 1984. 

After studying art and cinema, he directed two short films, Vers le Nord and Les Profondeurs, both selected at the Clermont Ferrand festival and broadcast in 2011 on France Television. He then co-directed the feature-length documentary Babylon, which tells the story of life and death in a refugee camp on the Tunisian-Libyan border. The film was awarded the Grand Prize in the international competition at the FID in Marseille and programmed at the MoMA in New York.

He is currently working on writing his first feature-length fiction film, Ashkal (Mille et une Productions). The film depicts a police investigation that takes a fantastic turn in a strange new city setting of ultra-modern buildings and derelict construction sites.

Youssef is also a musician and producer with the Bookmaker Records label. He is the co-founder of the Sailing Stones Music Festival, which takes place every year in a different region of Tunisia. 

“This program allowed me to progress on my work in a serene and confident way. I was able to push my research and prepare the next shooting of my feature film. The numerous collaborations with other residents at the Cité have created strong ties and artistic connivances. These collaborations will continue and will be part of the making of my film.”

Anaïs Cheleux (born in 1987) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Guadeloupe, where she lives and works. Through photography and performance, and in dialogue with her roots in Guadeloupean carnival, she approaches her body as a space for experimentation, attuned to invisible presences and to the rituals evoked by her movements across Afro-diasporic territories.

She holds a Baccalaureate in Photography (2018) and was mentored by the École nationale supérieure de la photographie in Arles in 2025.

Her work is part of the public collection of the Fonds d’art contemporain de Guadeloupe and has been exhibited as part of the OFF programme of the Dakar Biennale, at the Alliance Française in New Orleans, and during Nuit Blanche in Paris in 2024. She has presented performances at the Regards sur Cours festival in Senegal (2024), at the Energisa Gallery in Brazil (2024), at the French Institutes in Libreville (Gabon) and Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire), and at the Biennale des Rencontres Photographiques de Guyane in 2025.

In late 2027, Anaïs Cheleux will present her first long-term project, Sé Konsa Nou Yé, in which she explores trance and the reactivation of transgenerational memories through movement and image.