Christine Rebet: Sound of Time
Exhibition, Film, Performance
The Fall, Christine Rebet, 2025 - Courtesy of the artist and Bureau, New York
On view at the Des Moines Art Center, Paris-based artist Christine Rebet presents Sound of Time, a survey of five films (2015–2025), shown consecutively as an immersive journey through her cinematic universe.
Working at the intersection of drawing and animation, Rebet has developed a meticulous, labor-intensive practice grounded in hand-drawn imagery. Her films evolve through vivid color and continuously shifting forms, accompanied by lyrical voice-over narrations. “I am interested in preserving hand-drawn animation for myself because it is my act, my gesture,” she explains. “My gesture is to draw. The magic of the hand.”
Across her work, Rebet engages with forgotten rituals, sacred landscapes, and oral histories. Shaped by extensive travel and research—from Jamaica and Haiti to the Persian Gulf, Thailand, and Southern Iraq—her films are often created in dialogue with musicians, monks, archaeologists, and other local knowledge holders. Blurring the line between historical fact and imagined forms, her practice foregrounds the elusive, layered, and often unknowable nature of history.
Christine Rebet is the 2026 Toni and Tim Urban Artist-in-Residence.
Sound of Time is curated by Associate Curator Ashton Cooper.
Live Performance, Film Screening, and Artist Conversation: “The Fall”
Saturday, April 11 l 1:30 pm
This special program features a live performance of The Fall with Simone Harris as Lady Blake Ophelia Stratum, followed by a screening of Christine Rebet’s 2025 film and a conversation between the artist and Harris, moderated by Ashton Cooper.
Christine Rebet is the 2026 Toni and Tim Urban Artist-in-Residence.
Sound of Time is curated by Associate Curator Ashton Cooper.