Magnanrama: Media, technologies, identities and networks around Nathalie Magnan

Far from being neutral tools, technologies and media – and the uses we make of them – profoundly shape our emotional relationships, intimacies and ways of seeing the world. They fuel our imaginations, forge our identities and define the networks in which we evolve, whether digital, geographical, based on shared interests, or all of the above.

This exhibition sets out to explore these contemporary issues through the lens of a career: that of Nathalie Magnan (1956–2016), a significant yet still little-known figure in the history of media, technology and feminism. Retracing her career through archives and films, and bringing together artists with whom she worked or whose practices extend hers, the exhibition constructs a collective biography that highlights the continuing relevance of her struggles around gender and technology, and her critical approach to media.

A media theorist, filmmaker, cyberfeminist and navigator of both the seas and the internet, Nathalie Magnan contributed to the histories of thought, media and technology, feminism and LGBTQIA+ struggles through a transdisciplinary, lively and generous practice. Following her death in 2016, she leaves behind a legacy of incisive questions about how media shape our worldviews, a belief in everyone’s agency to create their own representations, a participatory investigative methodology, and a distinctive sense of humour.