Christelle Oyiri is an artist, DJ and producer based in Paris. She works across multiple disciplines – from music and film to performance and installation – often exploring under-the-surface stories about contemporary culture, media and identity. Oyiri has described her work as focusing on ‘the things that lie between the lines’, including lost mythologies, youth subcultures, and diasporic histories. She has staged installations, performances and events around the world, including at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Haus der Kunst in Munich, Tramway in Glasgow and the Serpentine Gallery in London, as well as working as a DJ under the pseudonym Crystallmess.

HOW IS YOUR WORK INFLUENCED BY THE CIRCA 2024 MANIFESTO?
“I SEE YOU” is a love letter to Les Fauvettes, a neighborhood in the North of Paris banlieues, that is set to be demolished in early 2025 by the authorities. In this film, we follow the daily life of the choufs, these lookouts that survey the police, and the coming and going of everyone in the neighborhood. Perched on top of concrete buildings or posted up in front of the estate, they’re gargoyles of an underground economy.

Situating themselves in both secrecy, camouflage and espionage almost, but simultaneously being the staple of inspiration both in real life and online (ie : french snapchat). They were in the light despite doing everything not to be.

In this world they were keys of countersurveillance, compromising their own emancipation and teenagehood, weighed down by social determinism and peer pressure, until one night a green light pierced through and called them all in unison. “This is the cry that says welcome to a new world”, a signal to break the cycle and retrieve the freedom of our inner child.

This laser is a symbol of my own childhood, the sign of another world where the possibilities were endless. Indeed my dad working at a laser quest game called Cosmic Laser until I was a teen also inspired artworks and overall aesthetic.

My work is influenced by CIRCA 2024 Manifesto as It is driven by the desire to break a cycle and create a new mold and paradigm. Rather than embracing the idea of fate, linearity and tragic heroism, I SEE YOU navigate the idea of finding freedom in a world where monitoring is everywhere. How to escape the panopticon that became life ? How to find solace when social determinism isn’t on your side?

WHAT WOULD YOU CREATE/DO WITH THE £30K CIRCA PRIZE?
With the 30K, I definitely would love to invest in my practice by paying for my studio rent and creating a video drawing parallel between the Memphis pyramid and Giza Pyramids – the lines we draw in stones. I would love to focus on reflections, both literal and metaphorical. Start with the Memphis Pyramid reflected in the Mississippi River, then transition to the reflection of the Giza Pyramids in a desert mirage or water. A poetic musing on how each pyramid reflects the ambitions and values of its era. Memphis being one of the epicenters of the Bible belt and the city where Martin Luther King got shot, Giza Pyramids transitioning from tombs to being tourist attractions. I wanna explore its relationship to death and monumentalism.

FOLLOW CHRISTELLE OYIRI-K ON INSTAGRAM