At the center of this artwork stands L’obsédée sexuelle (Brutalités amoureuses), a 1970s sexploitation film by Jean-Paul Sassy, which follows Catherine—a woman entangled in addiction, psychiatric incarceration, and sexual violence. Written through a distinctly patriarchal and male lens according to today’s context, such a film would—and should—not be made. Yet, as a cultural artifact, it persists, demanding to be seen, interrogated, and reimagined.

Drawing on Simone Osthoff’s notion of the archive as a “living artwork,” this work rejects static preservation in favor of critical transformation. Sourced from the artist’s personal archive of 35mm film reels, the footage has been radically reworked: human figures are removed, sound erased, and the narrative, in form of subtitles, dismantled. What remains is a spectral trace—fragmented scenes that gesture toward the original without replicating it. A few subtitle sequences linger, but are rewritten: replacing the hyper-sexualized male voice with a disjointed, ambiguous language. This intentional dissonance disrupts the original framing and opens up a new space for reflection.

Here, exploitation cinema becomes raw material—not for homage, but for autopsy. The archive emerges as a mutable, ethical space—one that compels us to confront not only the images we inherit, but how we choose to engage with them.