prix swiss life
2026
The Chaos that gives me life.
Atlas of an Imaginary Country
The Chaos That Gives Me Life. Atlas of an Imagined Country revolves around the tectonics of exile: forest mists, carnival calypso, Creole culture and memories. A sensory cartography of journeys, from the ancestral lands of the Orinoco to the Guiana Shield, all the way to the Caribbean Sea: sketching the sensory atlas of an imagined country. Through a sensory and immersive journey where music and imagery become sensory cartographies, Oleñka and La Chica invite the audience to share an emotional experience focused on healing and connection. This project seeks to go beyond mere documentary observation to open up a shared space for testimony, listening and care — an imagined territory of encounters beyond our identities and nationalities.
Born in Paris to a French father and a Venezuelan mother, La Chica She grew up between France and Venezuela. After training at the conservatoire and then in sound engineering, she spent more than ten years pursuing a career as a musician alongside artists such as Zap Mama, Yaël Naim, Mayra Andrade and Pauline Croze. In 2015, she launched her own project, inspired by her dual cultural background and a personal exploration of identity, memory and transformation.
Her unique artistic world blends Latin American heritage, electronic music, classical influences and visual art. Through her albums *Cambio*, *La Loba* and *La Chica & El Duende Orchestra*, she has developed a sensitive and immersive body of work in which emotions, personal narratives and poetic power intertwine. She is currently working on a new album, due for release in 2026.
A Venezuelan artist based in Paris, Oleñka Carrasco develops a multidisciplinary practice combining photography, writing, drawing and performance. Inspired by poetry
Drawing on personal experience, her work takes the form of installations and visual narratives that explore memory, identity and realities
invisible social issues. Trained in literature, the humanities, and subsequently photography and fine art, she was selected in 2022 for the ENSP Arles mentoring programme with Susan Meiselas and Gilles Saussier. A winner of the Folio Review Photography Prize and the CNAP’s Documentary Photography Grant, she has exhibited her work at the Rencontres, amongst other venues
at Arles, Paris Photo, the PhotAumnales and Cali FotoFest. His works are regularly exhibited in France and internationally.
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