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Photo: Juan C. Roa
Zabo Chabiland is a French visual and sound artist born in 1968.
After living and working in New York (1986-2003), Paris (2003-2005), Berlin (2005-2021), she established her new base in Anjou in 2021.
She studied photography at the International Center of Photography in New York in the full time general studies program directed by the photographer Robert Blake and the visual artist Sam Samore (class of 1988).
As the daughter of an inventor, Zabo learned early on to build bridges between different mediums. She began by confronting photography with painting, then with silk-screening and radiography. From 1988 to 1992, she produced a series of 22 black-on-black portraits, printed on linen, soliciting the progressive reading and the scotopic vision of the viewer. The series has been presented in various venues including the Photographer's Gallery in London. Her experiments on the fusion between photography and silk-screening lead her in 1997 to positive radiography, she then, transforms her photo laboratory into a radiographic laboratory. The first installation "corps en suspens" was presented by Esther Woerdehoff Gallery at Paris Photo the same year.
These long periods of experimentation led her to practice in parallel, in a more spontaneous way, music, video and performance. In 1998, she formed with the artist Kevin Morrison, Wasteband,fusing experimental music, video, performance, manifesto and collaborations.
From 2008, she starts new video and sound performance projects in Berlin following different protocols. The sound piece "Elbow in C" continues to evolve after being presented in many festivals including Mad at La maison rouge in Paris or at the Fluxus Blago Bung festival at the Emily Harvey Foundation in New York. For the piece "Piano Stripe" for 36 hands, Zabo created an ensemble of 18 performers, musicians, professionals or without musical practice. This piece was presented at the Beaux Arts de Paris during the 68th edition of Jeune création.
Her first vinyl "Watewah-Sleeping Odyssey" was released in 2020 on the label "Grautag records".
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