Sevana Holst (born in Paris, 1997) is a Franco-American poet and visual artist. After studying history at the Sorbonne and Persian at INALCO, she began her career as a translator and independent writer before exploring the boundaries between text and image.
Influenced by the concrete poetry movements of the 1950s-70s, she challenges the physical and conceptual boundaries of language, going beyond the page to question the aesthetics and limits of language. Her work seeks to desacralise literary and visual spheres by blending, diverting, and confronting them.
Through mixed medias—writing, sculpture, drawing, embroidery and photography—she explores ephemerality, traces fragments of memory, imagines sensations, and tells stories. Her work questions the authority of narrative, the fluidity of recollection, and the role of the image in shaping personal and collective histories.
Her work has been exhibited in Venice, Milan, Naples, and Paris. She lives and works in Paris.
EDUCATION
2018 - B.A. Persian Studies, INALCO (Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales), Paris
2015 - B.A. History, Sorbonne University, Paris
EXHIBITIONS
Dec 2024
Brussels Ass Book Fair, art book fair, Kanal Pompidou, Brussels, Belgium
Nov 2024
SPRINT Milano, art book fair, Spazio Maiocchi, Milan, Italy
Oct 2024
Tisser la guêpe et l'orage, duo exhibition with Marie Estebanez, DOC, Paris, France
Sept 2024
Memoria Emotiva, group exhibition, colla super, Milan, Italy
Oct 2023 - Jan 2024
Commissioned piece for A toi de faire, ma mignonne, Sophie Calle, Musée National de Picasso, Paris, France
April 2023
Pedro I, duo exhibition with Marie Estebanez, RVB BOOKS, Paris, France
Sept 2021
ReA! Art Fair, Milan, Italy (Winner of the Look Forward Prize)
June 2021
CREATIVE ROOM, Looking Within, a.topos gallery, Venice, Italy
April 2021
WINDOWS PROJECT, Acte III/ En attendant... , Espace Immanence, Paris, France
RESIDENCY & PRIZE
Feb 2022
Look Forward Art Residency [Artist Residency, Solo Exhibition, and Conference], SuperOtium, Naples
PUBLICATIONS
COPIES PLIÉES II, Sevana Holst, self-published, printed in Paris, Oct 2024
Tisser la guêpe et l'orage, by Sevana Holst and Marie Estebanez, self-published, Paris, Sept 2024
COPIES PLIÉES / FOLDED COPIES, Sevana Holst, self-published limited edition, Paris, Jan 2024
Happy Birthday Picasso, Je vois la lumière noire, by Christophe Brunnquell and Grégoire Alexandre (collaboration), Paris, Dec 2023
Recurring readings for A Reader's Catalogue, Mouvement Radio, Paris/London, Nov 2021 - Jul 2023
Deleuzine : A Zine for Nobodies Without Organs, Vol I, ed. Lilly Marks, London, Oct 2021
"TRIPTYQUE, Everything not saved will be lost", for JANE by the Grey Attic, March 2021