Press Kit
https://www.elsamro.com/kit-presse/
The indulge express
This artistic duo creates immersive eco-stories through pop-ups and digital landscapes
The Tribune
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/arts/in-times-of-global-warming-a-festival-for-oceans/
Villa Albertine
https://villa-albertine.org/va/professionals/interview-with-residents-cecile-palusinski-and-elsa-mroziewicz/
Interview
Can you tell us about your artistic career?
Elsa Mroziewicz :
Can you tell us about your artistic journey? My artistic journey has been shaped by the intersection of visual arts, pop-up books, and animation. I create pop-up books, incorporating new technologies, particularly augmented reality. The essence of my work is shaped by travel and the human interactions that result from it, as well as a deep connection to the contemplation of nature and the exploration of cultural heritage and memories. What drives me is creating sensitive and immersive worlds where traditional and digital techniques come together to tell stories in a different way.
Cécile Palusinski :
Originally a writer, with several books to my credit, I have expanded my work over the past seven years to include sound writing and augmented, virtual, and mixed reality projects. I am particularly interested in how voice, text, and music can interact with images and enrich each other, exploring new narrative formats. My involvement in promoting French-language audiobooks through the association La Plume de Paon also feeds my desire to make stories accessible and alive, beyond the confines of paper.
Elsa et Cécile :
We met 15 years ago while working on a CD album project called L’épopée de Noé (The Epic of Noah), and since then we have created numerous projects together, navigating between the worlds of publishing and contemporary art. Our worlds converged around our shared desire to combine art, poetry, and immersive technologies in socially conscious creative projects that question humanity’s relationship with its environment. Villes Flottantes is the result of this shared desire to tell the story of the world “differently,” through augmented reality soundscapes.
As founders of Studio Under the Starry Vault, we first co-created the transmedia project Arbres-Mondes, the giant augmented reality pop-up book Le Baobab, which was a finalist for the 2023 Meggendorfer Prize for Artist Books (USA), and the monumental augmented reality sound work La Forêt universelle. We were then awarded several residencies: Villa Formose in Taiwan, Villa Swagatam in India, a residency in Brazil with the support of the Institut français and the Consulate General of France in Recife, and Villa Albertine in Miami for the Villes flottantes project. This allowed us to develop the multicultural dimension of our work, which is very important to us.
The Floating Cities project was born out of a joint reflection on the future of coastal cities in the face of climate change and the impact of human activities on the ocean. Very quickly, we wanted to imagine imaginary cities where ecological solutions (natural barriers, etc.) and inspiring innovations (decarbonization in the construction sector, etc.) would coexist. These floating cities are spaces that are both real and poetic, combining ecological solutions and imaginary narratives, nourished by mythology linked to water.
Our process has been developed through residencies in several countries, notably India, where we discovered practices such as rice-fish farming and the floating gardens of Kerala. These experiences in the field during our residencies in Taiwan, India, Tunisia, Brazil, and the United States have nourished the work, enriching it with concrete initiatives, each place bringing its own vision of ecological issues. This back-and-forth between research, meetings with scientists, communities, ethnologists, ocean protection associations, and creation gave rise to Floating Cities in its current form: large augmented reality soundscapes that showcase innovations, with the underlying idea of building bridges between art and science.
Above all, we wanted to re-enchant the way people view the ocean. We also regularly meet with schools when presenting our projects and have noticed that there is a high level of eco-anxiety among young people today, so it was essential for us to instill hope and beauty. The work is an invitation to wonder, but also to reflect: how can we invent models of society that are more respectful of nature, how can we rediscover a sacred connection to nature? Villes Flottantes offers an imaginary world around the ocean: a space where we can discover inspiring solutions and rediscover the beauty and magic of life. We also sought to create a sensory connection between the viewer and the ocean, bringing together voices, sounds, and animated images that populate these imaginary cities. Each painting is a gateway to another world, but also an invitation to think about our place in the world. We also wanted to pay tribute to ancestral knowledge, particularly that of indigenous peoples, and to the spiritual connections that many cultures have with water, by integrating them into the scientific innovations presented in the work. It is this dual interpretation—poetic and ecological—that we wanted to convey.
In our opinion, new media broaden the artistic experience. They allow us to multiply the levels of interpretation: visual, auditory, interactive. Augmented reality, in particular, gives substance to the invisible, to those floating, poetic worlds that we imagine. It is a way of taking the viewer on a sensory journey, making them an active participant in their own exploration, while creating a bridge between traditional artistic techniques, such as drawing, and technological innovation. We are also interested in these formats because they create an active experience for the viewer, who becomes an explorer of the work themselves. We really like the idea of being able to conceive of non-linear reading experiences, where the reader wanders through the heart of the work and chooses their own path. These formats also make it possible to reach a wider audience, particularly younger generations who are adept at using new technologies.
Throughout our projects, themes related to nature have become increasingly embedded in our work. We have moved from a contemplative approach to a more engaged, collaborative approach, where art also becomes a space for transmission, collective reflection, and highlighting solutions. We no longer simply represent nature: we seek to question and create a dialogue between art and science. Each project reinforces our conviction that art can be a lever for repairing, reconnecting, and re-enchanting. Today, we see art as a lever for reconnection and transformation, both for ourselves and for the public. On a personal level, we have also chosen to donate a portion of our profits to associations working to protect nature, as we believe that reflection, creation, and action in the field are inseparable today.
We both live in Strasbourg, a city far from the ocean. So, while we have a very vivid imagination when it comes to forests, the ocean was something less familiar to us, something to explore and discover. For us, the ocean embodies vastness, mystery, and movement. It is a place of connection between all living things, a space that is both sacred and fragile. Working on Floating Cities allowed us to discover the ocean through the perspectives of scientists, artisans, local communities, and mythological tales, and to deepen our intimate connection with this element, as artists and as human beings. It embodies hope, but also the urgency to act. Through this project, the ocean has become for us a mirror of our relationship with the world, our challenges and our hopes, a metaphor for the need to coexist, adapt, and invent new ways of inhabiting the Earth. The ocean has become a source of inspiration for us, but also a call to responsibility and solidarity. An exploration that we wish to continue with our next mixed reality project, Les gardiens de l’océan (The Guardians of the Ocean), currently in development, which will allow us to explore in greater depth the mythological figures associated with water.
We both share a passion for travel and discovering other cultures. Highlighting the uniqueness of each culture, while revealing what may be part of a collective unconscious that brings us together, is a common thread in all our creative projects.
Our European cultures, combined with our experiences living abroad, inspired us to incorporate diverse and multicultural narratives to create a collective imagination. Our backgrounds combine art, poetry, digital technologies, and, more recently, craftsmanship, with a constant curiosity about other cultures and ways of thinking. It is this wealth of influences that has enabled us to imagine Villes Flottantes as a hybrid, multicultural, and poetic space, both rooted in ecological realities and open to the collective imagination. A creative space that values local voices and ecological solutions specific to each territory.
For this project, it was also important for us to make the texts available in different languages (French, English, Portuguese/Brazilian, and soon Arabic and Chinese) in order to further enrich this multicultural project.
We want to continue exploring new immersive forms, particularly with our new project Les Gardiens de l’Océan (Guardians of the Ocean). We also want to continue exploring the intersections between art, craftsmanship, technology, and ecology. Our creative process is marked by the encounter between two seemingly opposing temporalities: the long time of nature, that of contemplation, and the accelerated time of technology. We are currently working on a project to create embroidered versions of our murals, following meetings with embroidery collectives. This project will enable us to forge links between traditional craft techniques, which are once again part of a long time frame, and digital technologies, while developing the social dimension of our works. We also plan to strengthen the international dimension of our projects by increasing collaborations and creating works that are modular and adaptable to different cultural contexts.
We see art as a form of poetic activism. Rather than delivering a direct message, we choose to open up spaces for emotion, contemplation, and questioning. Creativity is our way of reaching audiences, of sowing seeds that may, perhaps, sprout into action. By promoting indigenous knowledge and local innovations, we try to show that other futures are possible, without resorting to guilt-tripping. For us, creativity is a form of gentle activism. Rather than hammering home a message, we prefer to open up sensitive spaces, arouse curiosity, and provoke emotion and reflection. We believe that art can change our perspective and that this inner transformation is essential to accompany ecological change. By weaving poetic narratives, we try to show that hope is possible and that everyone can be an actor in a future that is more respectful of life. For us, creativity is a powerful lever for sowing the seeds of change.
Art has this unique ability to translate the invisible, to give shape and voice to what sometimes escapes us. It can transform mere scientific data into embodied, artistic, poetic, and emotional experiences. It can make complex realities tangible by embodying them in stories, images, and sounds. With Floating Cities, we hope that art will act as a mirror and a beacon: a mirror of the challenges and beauties of the marine world, a beacon for imagining new paths together that respect the planet.
We hope that art can touch people in ways that rational discourse sometimes fails to do, by provoking emotion and a desire to get involved. That’s our whole approach with Villes Flottantes!
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