Michaelle Sergile

Lives and works in Montreal, QC, Canada

Artist statement

Michaëlle Sergile (born in 1995 in Chicago, IL; based in Montreal, Canada) is an artist and independent curator. She spent her early childhood in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, before relocating to Canada. Sergile explores the history of Black communities through postcolonial archives, placing the experiences of Afrodescendant women at the heart of her research. Using weaving, a medium traditionally associated with women’s crafts and artistic practices, she interrogates power dynamics linked to gender and ethnicity. Interested in the phenomenon of “archival violence,” Sergile confronts the systemic erasure and marginalization of Black voices by (re)imagining and (re)constructing their histories. Her practice combines conceptual rigor with material sensitivity, translating research into evocative tactile works (Anaïs Castro, 2024). Drawing from the archives of Black communities in North America and the Caribbean diaspora, Sergile expands her textile practice into multimedia approaches and installations. In recent works, she weaves together fabric, wood, and video to create immersive environments that reflect on identity, memory, and place. By exploring the intersections of interior design and architecture across different geographies, she creates forms that are at once personal and collective. Her practice is also shaped by current events. Witnessing the destruction of monuments and archives in Haiti, where she spent part of her childhood and which is also her parents’ homeland,...

Artwork