Émilie McDermott is a French-American artist and graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts in Cergy. Her work explores how memory and sensory perception shape our relationship to places. Her installations and participatory formats engage audiences in experiences where individual narratives and collective memory intersect. She is the co-founder of the research project [Re]production, which focuses on the themes of motherhood in contemporary art and is supported by the French Ministry of Culture. Her work has been presented in France and internationally through exhibitions, festivals, residencies, and research programs.

A protean and multisensory artist, Émilie McDermott is interested in fragile forms of presence, in places left behind or lost, and in the emotional ties that remain attached to them. She explores how memory circulates between bodies, spaces, and narratives.

Homing is a project she has been developing for over five years. It gathers the history of vanished places that were childhood homes—her own, but also those of others who were willing to share a scent, a fragmented story, a presence that continues to linger there. The starting point of this memorial quest, which I am determined to bring to life in order to share its memory, no longer exists. It is an emblematic place in her native village, a building on the side of the dunes, “Le Signal”: it was destroyed in 2023, threatened by rising sea levels and coastal erosion. It will find a new life at the Cordeliers Chapel.