p. 39 de Nina Wakeford à la Cité internationale des arts

The Cité internationale des arts presents Nina Wakeford’s installation “p. 39”, from 20 October to 21 November 2026 in the Vitrine.

Nina Wakeford uses performance, installation and moving image to address the unresolved struggles of social movements of the past, as well as the challenges triggered by their reactivation.

Her inspiration comes from historical archives, but also from her friends, her lovers and their obsessions. In this project, her starting point was the death of a friend, Anna Livia Brawn, and a forgotten book.

Anna had translated into English a 1930 novel written by an openly lesbian Parisian author, Lucie Delarus-Mardrus. In this novel, the main character lives both as a man and as a woman.

The author includes caricatures of bourgeois lesbian “celebrities”, some of whom were known for sharing intimate moments during their horseback rides in the Bois de Boulogne.

Yet the author died almost penniless, having alienated her family and friends by refusing to end her relationship with a music-hall singer with a working-class “parigot” accent and “vulgar language”.

After finally tracking down a first edition of the novel at the Librairie Vignes in Paris, Nina felt she had reconnected with Anna.

Responding to the challenge of reinterpreting and recounting moments of fleeting encounters between women, and in a bibliophile impulse, Nina brings together an assemblage of recently collected materials, sung, spoken and staged.

Nina Wakeford (UK) is in residence through the 2–12 Site du Marais → Vitrine Cité internationale des arts programme.