About your guide
Hi ! I’m Laure (but everyone calls me Lo)
Growing up between bohemian Left Bank and the vineyards of Bourgogne, then the Marais, I’ve always been surrounded by strong women; from “Mamiré”, my great grandma of a bourgeois background who wanted to work no matter what, to my Mom – a Patti Smith and Virginia Woolf fan.
My childhood heroines were: Jo March, Belle (Beauty and the Beast) and Poison Ivy. I proudly define myself as a Janeite, that is, someone discussing the characters of Jane Austen as if I knew them personally.
It was only natural that in 2010 I entered a course on female models in Art History when studying at the University of Cape Town. My practice of drawing in life class also enabled me to understand conventions on the representation of the human body. From 2011 to 2014, my passion for museums brought me to complete two MAs (one in Visual Culture between Université Paris 7 and the Ecole du Louvre, the other in Museum Studies at University of Westminster). Since then, I’ve been an intern at: The Musée d’Orsay, the David Roberts Arts Foundation, the Victoria and Albert Museum.
All of this led me to the PhD programme I’m now in. I explore the creative agency that Elizabeth Siddal (1829 – 1862) had on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a secret society against the Royal Academy, drawing its inspiration from Early Renaissance Masters. And because I have the Hermione Granger syndrome (e.g. compulsively double-checking facts), you’ll often find me behind the shelves of the National Art History Library, a few mins from the Louvre.
Wanna know more about my research? I explain everything to you over here: https://www.listennotes.com/fr/podcasts/victorian-legacies/episode-18-laure-nermel-9Kfb_YHgpAm/
You can also read me there: https://www.academia.edu/81667575/My_God_my_land_my_father_sacrifice_and_family_relationships_in_Jephthahs_Daughter_by_Elizabeth_Siddal
Mission
Explore museums and districts of Paris through the lens of women who shaped French art history
Through literature and in certain cultural institutions, women have been reduced to sources of inspiration, companions to famous men or artists of minor importance. In painting and sculpture, they appear as objects of the viewer’s gaze rather than authors in their own right.
Tradition had it that there has been no great women artists. Women’s Art Tours’ purpose is to redress the balance and make you familiar with female figures that have been marginalised by history. Women’s Art Tours attempt to provide a broader conception of cultural heritage by giving women artists voices and individualities. Curated in 2018, these tours were the first and only ones in Paris dedicated specifically to female creation.
Led by a bilingual certified guide and art historian specialised in gender studies, Women’s Art Tours focus exclusively on the link between artistic production and women within museum and public spaces. If you long to discover new artists or listen to other tales than the constant rehashing about the Mona Lisa, you’ve found the right guide!
Here’s a tour preview: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ekQIFKWNV4E
And what I tell you onsite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HKK7B9NdfU&t=1677s
Ethics
Being a guide is about making museums and historical sites alive for you to see them in another light
As awe-inspiring as they are, museums may feel overwhelming. My job is to make you feel comfortable, to facilitate contact with artworks, giving you tools to decipher key concepts or subject-matter, in a jargon-free manner. It’s OK not to know about Ancient mythology or to have forgotten the name of a famous painting. I don’t see myself as a teacher; art is a lot about emotions. I rather consider my job as storytelling, so that you can engage through artworks.
To my mind, guiding is about conveying another perspective. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a feminist Louvre, temple of a white male aristocratic and middle-class élite. But we can certainly use feminist art history to reconfigure traditional narratives. Through these tours, I expect to make cultural institutions yours and envision them as non-binary, all-inclusive.
I believe that museums should embrace diversity and be open to all. Some are now practicable to prams and wheelchairs, and have step-free accesses. Note that we’ll discuss topics such as nudity, eroticism and sexuality, so I let parents decide up to which age children are able to attend.
Feel free to contact me for more information or reservations
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