During this residency, the artist duo Maladita draws from medieval and baroque iconography to question how female figures have been represented throughout history and how those representations resonate today. How is the image of the saint approached in contemporary art? Is it even being addressed?
Their reflection is fueled by depictions of martyrdom, the glorification of women devoted to causes beyond themselves, their resistance to power structures, their rejection of forced marriages, their erasure from modern narratives, and the persistence of certain feminine archetypes.
With humor, irreverence, and a deliberate sense of distortion, Maladita’s project My Prince Charming playfully reclaims these references. Moving away from a clearly defined “I” or “we,” they embrace a fragmented, almost universal voice that challenges conventions and stirs things up.
Young visual artist Angèle Verbeeren will be in charge of animating the puppets.
Prince charming
The saints will be sculpted in life-size papier-mâché. There will be seven of them, set in motion by motorized mechanisms and presented in a cardboard theatre inspired by baroque or neoclassical aesthetics. The scene will be completed with syncopated flashes of fluorescent pink neon lights, a disco ball, and disco songs sung by women.
To develop their project, the artist duo delved into Sicilian legends, bringing back to life figures such as Agatha—who refused a man, was sent to a brothel, and had her breasts torn off with pincers—and Lucia, who chose to tear out her eyes rather than be forced into marriage.
Saint Nathalie and Saint Aurélie also appear in the piece, in a spirit of self-portraiture and self-mockery. The work is rooted in playful questions the two artists asked themselves during a stormy afternoon: who are the saints behind their first names? How deeply have these stories shaped their imagination? And to what extent have they inherited or internalized feminine lineages?
The scenography also includes an installation of devotional objects arranged in neon-lit vending machines. Candles, keychains, bottles, condoms, caps, T-shirts, soaps, relics, and trinkets bearing the images of saints form a contemporary shrine or commemoration space—echoing the altars and religious merchandise found in the streets of Naples and other cities steeped in religiosity.
The installation is inspired by the kitsch commercialization often found at heritage sites like Mount Vesuvius, where historical or sacred significance becomes an excuse for consumption. It will be titled “Lupanar,” in homage to the women who once populated the brothel at the foot of the volcano.
Maladita (Be)
Maladita is an artist duo composed of Aurélie Bay and Nathalie Hannecart, visual artists and photographers based in Belgium. Trained respectively at the Fine Arts Academies of Charleroi and Namur, they cultivate a hybrid practice that blends photography, drawing, video, installation, and artist book publishing.
For over six years, they have been developing a collaborative four-handed practice that is both engaged and ironic, rooted in a critical reinterpretation of femininity, religious narratives, and popular myths. Their work draws on self-portraiture, satire, staging, and the use of humble and symbolic materials.
They have exhibited in Belgium and internationally (France, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Chile…) and are part of several public collections, including the Musée de la Photographie in Charleroi and the Arthothèque des Chiroux in Liège. In 2023, they received the “4 mains et plus si affinité” award from Galerie Vertige (Brussels), and in 2024, their book Pedro was shortlisted for the Author Book Award at the Rencontres d’Arles.
Aurélie Bay (Be)
Belgian visual artist born in 1981 and based in Brussels, she was trained in photography, sculpture, drawing, and video at the Fine Arts Academies of Charleroi and Molenbeek-Saint-Jean. Her transdisciplinary practice is often infused with self-mockery, personal storytelling, and references to popular or religious culture.
Working under the alter ego Maladita, she sharply questions the social constructions of femininity, narratives of martyrdom, invisible lineages, and systems of power. Through installations combining humble materials, baroque imagery, repurposed devotional objects, and pop music, she stages hybrid, grotesque, or sacred figures that hover between vulnerability and resistance.
Her work has been shown in numerous exhibitions in Belgium and abroad (France, Spain, Croatia, Canada, Portugal…), and in art centers such as Le Vecteur, Exit11, the Musée de la Photographie in Charleroi, and La Châtaigneraie. She is also the co-author of several zines and artist books, and a recipient of various awards including the Prix de la Jeune Sculpture (2020) and a 2024 selection for the Author Book Award at the Rencontres d’Arles.
Nathalie Hannecart (Be)
Belgian photographer based in Namur, where she lives and works. After an initial academic background in Romance philology at UCL (1998–2003), she turned to photography and graduated from the Académie des Beaux-Arts de Namur (2010–2019).
Her work, rooted in analog photography and alternative processes (cyanotype, photograms), explores traces, palimpsests, and the imprint of time in urban and industrial environments. Through the camera, she examines walls and surfaces, drawn to what emerges beneath the material and the relationship between presence and absence.
In 2015, she co-founded Atelier 22 at the University of Namur, a photography lab dedicated to analog practices and transmission, which she continues to coordinate today.
She has presented several solo exhibitions, including Orfeo in Brazil (2024) and La nuit remue at Le Delta in Namur (2021), and regularly takes part in group exhibitions in Belgium and abroad (Spain, Croatia, Chile, Portugal, Canada…). Her work is part of several public collections, including the Arthothèque de Liège and Émulation (Liège).
She also develops a collaborative practice within the collective Aspëkt and the duo Maladita, combining photography, drawing, video, installation, and micro-publishing.
Angèle Verbeeren (Be)
Angèle Verbeeren is a student at ARTS² (Carré des Arts) in Mons, specializing in digital arts and media imagery.
Passionate about films and animated movies, she embraces a colorful, gentle, poetic, and absurd aesthetic. She focuses on the small details of everyday life and brings new life to forgotten elements—memories or discarded objects.
Through her digital creations, she seeks to make these fragments ever more vivid and alive.
Informations
- 16.08 > 14.09.2025
- Couvant d’Hautrage
Production
- Malavita, Transcultures
