Duo -Y-
-Y- is a curator-artist duo formed by Julie Laymond (founder of the contemporary art association co-op) and Ilazki de Portuondo (artist). Their work explores the relationship between contemporary art and ancestral practices of magic in order to imagine and give shape to stories that have been obscured by official historic accounts.
Julie Laymond and Ilazki de Portuondo consider legendary events and figures as a living substance whose emotional reality transcends the ages. Their research incorporates the techniques of rhabdomancy and radiesthesia, divinatory methods based on the ability of objects such as wands and pendulums to register the radiation emitted by certain bodies. In their joint work, historical facts and emotional affects collide and materialise through creative practice.
The letter Y, from which the duo takes its name, is the ideogram for the divining rod.
Works by Duo -Y- have recently been shown in solo and group exhibitions, and as part of residency projects at Le Bel Ordinaire, Billère (2023); Memento, Auch (2022); and the art centre image/imatge, Orthez (2021).
Julie Laymond
B. 1978 in Bayonne, France
Lives and works in Pau, France
A graduate of the École supérieure des beaux-arts de Bordeaux, Julie Laymond co-founded Éditions Hybrid in 2007, an imprint specialising in museum promotion. In 2011, she set up an artist-run exhibition space in Bidart (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), which hosted a series of exhibitions showcasing the work of both young and established artists, as well as a programme of lectures by artists and other protagonists of the contemporary art world. As an initiator of cross-border cultural exchanges with museums, art centres and residencies from Bordeaux to Bilbao, she has extensive experience in working with public institutions and overseeing the development of projects benefitting from the support of local authorities and private partners. As the founder of the La Communale studios, she partnered with the city of Bidart to support 37 emerging artists by making available studio spaces and promoting their work. Her current work as a curator with the non-profit organisation co-op, which she co-founded in 2013, involves research into Basque intangible heritage and magic. The creative residency she set up as part of this research led to her collaboration with Ilazki de Portuondo, with whom she formed Duo -Y- in 2019.
Ilazki de Portuondo
B. 1988 in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, France
Lives and works between Saint-Jean-De-Luz and Mexico City
Ilazki de Portuondo’s artistic practice is grounded in feminist theory, which she studied among others with Giovanna Zapperi and Nathalie Magnan at the École nationale supérieure d’art de Bourges, and Paul B. Preciado in the Somateca research programme of Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid. Her studies in art complemented a curriculum of 15 years of dance and music training at the Bayonne Conservatoire. Combining sculpture, drawing, performance and music, her work looks at the sensitive nature of the body. In 2013/14, she completed a post-graduate course in Shanghai in which she examined the question of creation in the context of globalisation. Since 2016, she has been collaborating with people who devote themselves to paranormal practices, working alongside them to understand the invisible dimension of matter. It was in this context that she travelled to Mexico for the first time to learn from shamans and healers, as part of a cross-residency organised by the Capc Musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, the Institut français d’Amérique Latine (IFAL) and SOMA, whose academic programme she attended between 2017 and 2019. In 2019, after a residency in the Basque Country on invitation by co-op, she formed Duo -Y- with Julie Laymond.