LADINA CLÉMENT

CORPS SONORE

5 / 6/ 25 – 4 / 7 / 25

Corps Sonore, is a solo exhibition by London-based artist Ladina Clément (b. 1996). Featuring sound-emitting sculptures and graphite drawings, this new body of work explores themes pertaining to the sea – female vocalisation, mythology, animal and human migration, and loss.

In this exhibition Clément ventures beyond the boundaries of the physical body to explore the complexity of the female voice. Historically fraught with contradiction, it has been heard as both shrill and seductive, authoritative and nurturing—an "object at once of desire and fear".[1] In literature, opera and mythology, figures such as the Siren, the madwoman or the prostitute embody a voice whose unruly power disrupts social order—and this disturbance is often quelled through their demise. [2] While creatures like sirens were said to bring death with their song, women have comforted the mourning and honoured the deceased through song. Clément draws on traditional styles of lamentation from keening to Albanian iso-polyphony. Keening, a type of wailing has been performed since the 12th century in Ireland and Scotland. Here, the voice becomes a conduit of remembrance and emotional truth.

Lives lost at sea are honoured in this work, specifically those in the English Channel, which is the geographical space between the artist’s British and French nationalities. As a passage of personal, social and geo-political tension it symbolises hope, trepidation, opportunity and tragedy. The cast metallic life buoys that signify lifesaving capabilities are made unusable, they are marooned iron lungs. These sculptures emit an uncanny chorus of Siren song, keening, and whale drones—blurring the line between speech, breath and music.

Ladina Clément’s Corps Sonore invites audiences into a sensory space shaped by memory, mythology, and migration—where the boundaries between land and sea, body and voice, past and present intertwine.

About the Artist

Ladina Clément is a 2022 alumnus from the Royal College of Art MA Sculpture programme and Leverhulme Trust Arts scholar. Clément graduated from Edinburgh College of Art with a BA (Hons) Sculpture degree in 2018. In February 2024 she had a solo exhibition at The Stone Space, London and has shown her work in group shows across the UK and internationally. She has exhibited in Saatchi Gallery, London; MK Gallery, Milton Keynes; the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh as well as the Thorvaldsens Museum in Copenhagen. In January 2024 she completed Good Eye Projects’ Autumn Residency, and in 2022 received the RCA Gilbert Bayes Award and was a finalist in the Ingram Prize.

[1] Margaret Thatcher adapted her voice during her career, dropping it “sixty hertz” between the sixties and eighties.Tallon, T. (2019) ‘A Century of “Shrill”: How Bias in Technology Has Hurt Women’s Voices’, The New Yorker, 3 September. Available at: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/a-century-of-shrill-how-bias-in-technology-has-hurt-womens-voices (Accessed: 17 May 2025).Dunn, L. and Jones, N. (1994) in Embodied voices: representing female vocality in Western Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p 3

[2] Ibid, p 7

For more information images, or interview requests about the artist contact Ladina Clément:

@ladinaclement    |     https://www.ladinaclement.com/