2021 IIM Award for Creation / Experimentation

Violaine Fimbel’s approach is one of permanent experimentation in combining puppetry with other artistic mediums and in particular, “new magic” and special effects. She collaborates continuously with other artists and researchers in her creative activity to invent new forms for representing the living, the inexpressible and the invisible, and to renew aspects of dramaturgy and the relationship with the audience.

BIO
Upon graduating from ESNAM (École Nationale Supérieure des Arts de la Marionnette) in 2014, Violaine Fimbel created the company Yôkaı̈, whose first show, VOLATILE(S) toured́ to Finland, Germany, Brazil, Japan, and Avignon.

To deepen the instinctive practice of magic present in her first show, Violaine Fimbel then got training in New Magic offered at the CNAC by Raphaël Navarro and Valentine Losseau, of the Company 14:20. Following this experience, she created the show POSSESSION and the animated exhibition KILLING ALICE (2017-2019) in which she pursued her research - making the impossible possible, cultivating disturbance in the audience member’s perception, giving life/body to the supernatural.

In 2019, she continued her work on immersion and the senses of the audience with the post-apocalyptic fable GIMME SHELTER presented at the Festival Mondial des Théâtres de Marionnettes in Charleville-Mézières and on tour in France and Europe.

In 2021, she is launching the Invisible Awakening project, which aims to study how to bring back to the stage special effects developed by filmmakers over several decades in the field of invisible animation and the creation of autonomous creatures.