From 2009 to 2019 Elena Khurtova has been working with Marie Ilse Bourlanges within artist duo Khurtova & Bourlanges.

The duo practice of Khurtova & Bourlanges is positioned at the intersection between formal and conceptual, where materiality and temporality play an essential role. Their work explores the paradox between transformation and its inherent loss, in a format that varies from large-scale transient installations (Dust to *dust, 2018), transformative sculptures (Wetter than Wet, 2018), performances (Shelf Life, 2019) and artist books (Looking for the Ursa Major, 2016).

In 2019 the duo finalized a five-years project The Sky is on the Earth based on the personal archive of Jacques Bourlanges, author of an obscure theory of a correlation between star constellations and French geography. The project unfolded in a series of chapters, offering multiple entry points in order to decentralize how to apprehend the body and subject of an archive. From explorations of the urge to preserve – that ultimately destroys – to the destruction of the source in order to create something new; from tampering with things so they remain the same to artists’ books that fade in sunlight; from terracotta boxes that ultimately turn to dust – and consequently back into clay – they continually reconfigured the meaning of archive and permanence. www.theskyisontheearth.com