Hema Louise Héléa Bordier (b. 1998, Switzerland) is a visual artist who lives and works Ginevra. Working across painting, installation and sculpture, her practice investigates the body as a site where memory, emotion and experiences of the unconscious are inscribed in matter. Drawing on the tradition of the objet trouvé, she combines found objects with glass, textiles, beads, shells and organic materials, creating poetic installations that evoke a constant balance between intimacy and estrangement. Her works explore processes of transformation and accumulation, examining how personal histories settle within matter and are translated into tactile forms. In 2025, her work was presented at the ZHdK Winter Fine Arts Auction, and she co-published the artist’s book Inseparably Intertwined. More recently, she presented her solo exhibition Memories Inscribed in the Body (2026) at Lele Projects in Zurich.
To inhabit memory as an embodied experience and transform it into matter: a memory inscribed in the body even before it enters thought; a memory that is not simply an archive of the past, but a living presence that continues to shape our perceptions, emotions and ways of relating to the world. Hema Bordier’s artistic practice unfolds within this framework. Her works become vessels for traces – spaces in which experiences, wounds and possibilities for transformation coexist in a tension that is fragile yet deeply generative.
In Rise of Hope (2026), this research takes the form of an inner landscape. Its blue-green atmosphere envelops the gaze within a suspended dimension, devoid of clearly defined spatial references and evocative of contemplation and introspection, while a column of light emerges from its centre. The light does not come from outside but appears to arise from within the work itself, suggesting the possibility of a transformation born from the acceptance of one’s own vulnerability. Delicate, organic materials – including hair, glass, crystals and beads – are interwoven with these painterly elements, further expanding the meaning of the image by transforming each element into a symbolic presence. ‘Hair holds memories: it is connected to the body, to time and to personal history. Cutting it and then braiding it is my way of symbolically representing liberation and letting go. This does not necessarily mean forgetting the past, but rather transforming our relationship with it,’ the artist explains.
The crystal, meanwhile, introduces a reflection on the ambivalence of fragility. Its apparent delicacy coexists with a resilient structure, making it a metaphor for a form of resilience built through the acceptance of one’s wounds. The same tension runs through Chalice (2026), a small, intimate sculpture that appears fragile and elegant at first glance. The work reveals itself as a symbolic vessel: a space in which memory, matter and light enter into dialogue, making the invisible visible.
Rather than recounting an individual story, Bordier invites us to recognise inner transformation as a universal experience: learning to inhabit our past without becoming its prisoners, while patiently allowing our most authentic selves to emerge.
Text by Erica Massaccesi
