We had the good fortune of connecting with Sarah Konté and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Sarah, can you tell us more about your background and the role it’s played in shaping who you are today?
I was born in Paris, France, and I studied philosophy and linguistics. I’ve always been interested in how the mechanics of language work, and how we can play with them in order to produce our own language — a language that moves between absurdity, dreams, and conceptual expression. This language can take different forms: from a musical score using words instead of notes, to lines that call out to your inner, hidden sound.

I began developing this idea when I was an exchange student in Berlin, studying Philosophy at the Humboldt Universität. During that time, I took many absurd photos and videos within the queer party and rave scene.

Alongside my master’s degree in Philosophy and Linguistics, I was accepted to the Beaux-Arts de Paris, where I explored this distorted language through video, sound, photography, performance, and installation with my mentor and teacher Abraham Cruzvillegas.
My approach to language took a new direction when I began filming close-up shots of body parts such as hands or laughing mouths and presenting them on pedestals with monitors — without any sound. Just isolated, silent mouths laughing, exhibited as independent characters: silent, laughing, disembodied mouths.

In 2021, the school sent me as an exchange student to CalArts in the School of Film and Video, where I truly found the space and freedom to experiment with all my ideas. My teachers — Betzy Bromberg, Cauleen Smith, and Dimitri Chamblas — encouraged and supported me deeply. Chamblas even invited me to be part of his Slow Show performance at MOCA in 2021.

Los Angeles is where I found my artistic family, and where I had my first solo show, thanks to curator Meredith Marlay. I recently collaborated with her again for a performance titled One Night Only at SADE Gallery in Los Angeles.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I’m working with the theme of tumbleweeds, that twirler of cinematic deserts, which gathers as much as it scatters.
I identify with the tumbleweed, like a traveler collecting words, sounds, and images that I later bring together in my installations. For me, the tumbleweed is a kind of griot — a storyteller from West Africa. In my own way, I collect stories like a modern-day griot, translating them into a new, imagined language. I’m interested in the quest for racial, social, and gender identity through the prism of celebration and travel — how different languages can make sense together. I create scores of words, images, and imagined sounds to present a language that can bring people together: the language of imagination.

Working with writing, video, sound recording and creation, as well as photography, I create installations featuring projection games, sculptures that become diffraction screens, and photographs that take shape in space. I work with video both digitally and on 16mm film by shooting directly on the film and then using rayographs to create a photographic gesture within my videos.
After completing my dissertation at EHESS in Arts and Langages on “la quête du sens : destin croisé entre le mot et l’image – une tentative de représentation du sens” (the quest for meaning: the crossed destiny of word and image – an attempt to represent meaning), then after my exchange at CalArts and after obtaining my DNSAP from the Beaux arts de Paris. I now devote myself to presenting performance installations that open onto an apparent deconstruction of images and sound, in a fragmented way so that the spectator is their own conductor of the story they want to compose, having before them all the elements that may or may not make sense.
In this way, I’m interested in what resists perception, in the inner conflict we experience when confronted with a work of art, when our free will expresses itself in all its splendor. The installation then becomes a stage on which the audience is the main character, and I try to propose a new form of cinematographic writing that takes shape according to the audience’s movement.

My videos are often about memories trying to rebuild themselves. When I compose my sounds, I choose to start with texts that I write and send to people close to me, and I ask them to record themselves reading the text and then send me their recording. I then work on these collected voices and add my own sounds that I compose on the synthesizer, or noises that I record or make. I like this idea of being a kind of guardian of the spoken word, of voices collected from different countries and
in different languages, then playing them in my videos and in space. This idea of voices circulating and words trying to be preserved comes from my desire to be like
a griotte, (an historical storyteller originally from West Africa) no longer just from a blood family, but from a chosen, friendly, international family. Playing languages that may not understand each other through words, but can understand each other through the music they play when they’re together. Inspired by Hito Steyerl, Pipilotti Rist, Maya Angelou, Audre Lorde and Camara Laye, I seek to establish a discourse on the borders of reality and fiction. In this way, I approach a visual and sensory presentation of the questions that drive me.

I’m deeply grateful to Jean-Michel Othoniel and Lou-Justin Tailhades for their trust during the residency we shared at Villa Dufraine, part of the Académie des Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France. That experience led to the beautiful exhibition BONSOIR MÉMOIRE at La Monnaie de Paris in November 2023.

I’m also truly grateful to Brian Lee Hughes from SADE Gallery, who gave space to a show I co-curated with Meredith Marlay, titled ONO — One Night Only. It featured two of my films, a sound piece that I composed, a live painting and a dance performance that I painted and performed myself.

It was an incredible opportunity to present my work in a total art experience, a space where all the elements could come together freely.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I’ll start with my studio, since that’s where I spend most of my time. Then we could head to Zizou, just around the corner from my studio. It’s my favorite spot to enjoy delicious food and a great selection of wines. The vibe is always amazing. I love the team who works there. Sometimes, you can even dance! They have a great DJ lineup, and the restaurant itself is super cozy and beautifully decorated. It reminds me of some of my favorite places in the south of France.

Next, I’d take my best friend to see a film at the American Cinematheque in Los Feliz, I’m there all the time. We’d also head to Leimert Park to walk around, grab some food, and visit an exhibition at Art + Practice, which always has a great program of artists.

One day, we’d escape to a secret beach I love, up north in Malibu. It feels like the end of the world. We’d also go on a late-night hike under the full moon to catch the sunset on one side and watch the moonrise on the other side, I know the perfect spot for that in Griffith Park.

And finally, we’d end the week with my friends at an improvised party where we’d dance until our legs give out!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Abraham Cruzvillegas and Cauleen Smith were my teachers both at Beaux arts de Paris for Abraham and at CalArts for Cauleen. They encouraged me a lot in my process of video installation and performance. Abraham always gives me some references to look at, from writers, visual artists to a lot of musicians! He invited me to perform the reading of his texts at Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris in 2019. He also invited me to be part of an exhibition he curated in Mexico City at Galería Campeche in 2023, Aire Fresco en el Verano del Amor. Thanks to Abraham, I had the chance to meet brilliant artists in Mexico and starting to collaborate with a friend and artist Bayo Alvaro. Thanks to Cauleen, I learned to sharpen my vision and the focus of my videos. She taught me to make my narrative solid and to always push the boundaries of the film format. I believe that film should not be limited to a single screen; it can be projected onto infinite surfaces and viewed on many different scales. She also accompanied me closely in the process of obtaining my O1 artist visa in order to be able to stay in Los Angeles.

Website: https://kontesarah.cargo.site/

Instagram: @sarahkonte

Other: Vimeo :
https://vimeo.com/user130626364

Image Credits
© Sarah Konté
© Patrick Rimond
© Basil Perot
© Agathe Bourrée

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