Art is never
the object alone.
Anne-Laure Lemaitre shapes places
where makers and viewers belong.
Death is an absolute condition of living, an encounter one cannot escape, or prevent those they love from facing.
Drawing inspiration from secular, mythological, and mythical connections between the sea and the afterlife, El Cielo del Mar offers a space to contemplate one's relationship to grief, embracing mourning not only as an experience of loss, but as a rite of renewal, where transformation becomes possible through acknowledgment and surrender.
The exhibition's title references both the inherent healing power of the ocean (even more so in the context of Caribbean culture) and its parallel to a greater beyond. Water operates as a threshold between worlds, a vessel through which memory, history, and spirit circulate. The sea, vast, unknowable, and in constant motion, mirrors the emotional tides of grief.
On the lawn approaching the Historic Chapel stands a large assemblage featuring a reclaimed boat. The outdoor sculpture evokes difficult journeys, from the transience that may come with hardship or displacement to the broader depiction of passage to the afterlife: souls ferried by Charon on the Styx, or navigating from the Nile to Duat, the water-filled underworld. The reclaimed nature of the vessel anchors these mythological references in lived realities of survival and rupture. Crossing, whether physical or spiritual, is too often marked by both loss and resilience.
The Chapel is occupied by four wooden sculptures. Constructions like these are often used by Bony Ramirez as metaphorical representations of himself in different states of being, but may also be read as referencing four beasts, living creatures, or guardian deities, custodians of the feelings of those who enter. Their presence introduces a subtle tension between protection and confrontation. They may watch over, guide, or bear witness, but also mirror fragmented aspects of the self, allowing viewers to recognize within themselves shifting states of grief, memory, or identity.
On the altar, a large installation composed of a series of panels assembled on multiple planes becomes akin to theater or opera sets, integrating stained glass, marble, carvings, and architecture into the Chapel's inherent decorative qualities. This layered staging collapses distinctions between the sacred and the constructed, the permanent and the ephemeral, turning the space itself into an active participant in the work. The horse, the structure's main motif, represents in many cultures concepts of freedom and journey, but also a connection between realms and the untamed power of the sea. Yet this horse wears blinders, evoking the human struggle to grasp the fleeting nature of life.
Nested at the center of the Chapel, a circular plinth invites visitors to surrender a name or thought connected to their pain or sorrow, under the gaze of sculptures embodying the five stages of grief. This gesture introduces a participatory and ritualistic dimension to the exhibition, transforming viewers into contributors. These anonymous offerings may surrender silent wounds or become gestures of remembrance, creating a collective archive of loss that remains unseen yet deeply present.
Resonating throughout the installation, a companion soundscape designed by artist Elvin Tavarez invites introspection, contemplation, and bereavement, enveloping the visitor in an auditory environment, an invisible current that blurs the boundary between inner and outer experience.
El Cielo del Mar was conceived by Ramirez as a safe haven where all are welcome to process their torments and grieve. In doing so, it does not seek to resolve grief, but to hold it, to give it form, space, and temporality, allowing mourning to unfold as both an individual and collective act, and ultimately, as a quiet gesture toward healing and renewal.
Photo: Alexander Laurent Rubalcava
Anne-Laure Lemaitre is a curator, writer, and producer based in New York, Paris, and the Nova Scotia wilderness. Her practice begins by questioning a territory: its physical and emotional dimensions, its history, its context, its belonging, before turning to the art it calls for. This orientation has shaped a body of work spanning the most experimental corners of the emerging art world and leading corporations and public institutions.
Many artists she has worked with early in their careers have since gone on to significant critical and market recognition. Those relationships rarely end with the exhibition. For several, she remains a resource: someone to think with, exchange with, workshop with.
For nearly twenty years, she has worked across scales and contexts: from intimate solo exhibitions at artist-run spaces to permanent public commissions, from single-artist career conversations to cultural programs spanning five continents. Her practice is built around the specific rather than the repeatable, treating the space, the institution, the sidewalk, and the online environment each as curatorial material in its own right.
Lemaitre writes regularly about art for catalogues, publications, and for herself. Her writing, whether commissioned or not, tends toward the felt rather than the prescribed: a belief that how we speak about a practice, and what it does to us, shapes how it is seen and received.
Intentional art programs · Site-specific commissions
Curatorial strategy · International practice
Art In Context is a curatorial production practice whose work ranges from international public commissions, corporate collections and multi-venue cultural strategies to ongoing collaborations with artists, brands and cultural institutions.
Every project begins with the same questions: what does this place need, what story belongs here, and who should tell it. That orientation shapes everything from artist selection and fabrication to the logic of how a program holds together in one location or across multiple sites.
Drawing on nearly twenty years of work, Art In Context has built the infrastructure to operate anywhere and at any scale. An extensive network of creative partners allows it to move from a single commission to a coordinated program spanning dozens of sites without losing the specificity that makes a project land. Art In Context works worldwide.