Michèle Saint-Michel
Filmmaker, Intermedia Artist, and Poet
Michèle Saint-Michel
Filmmaker • Intermedia Artist • Poet
Based in Brooklyn, NY
I work around issues of power, feminist ecologies, somatic memory, and quantum mechanics. My practice often takes shape as experimental film, poetic books, installations, choreographies, and Fluxus scores—forms that operate like quantum functions: layered, indeterminate, and full of paradox.
About Michèle Saint-Michel
Michèle Saint-Michel is a filmmaker, intermedia artist, and poet. She works around issues of power, feminist ecologies, somatic memory, and quantum mechanics. Trained in classical ballet and modern dance, and later as a writer and filmmaker, Saint-Michel’s works often use language, moving image, somatic movement, sound work, and sculpture to promote healing and gentle coping.
Her moving image work and poetry films have been official selections by the Prismatic Ground Festival (NYC), Manchester International Film Festival (UK), Cadence Poetry Film Festival (Seattle), Dérapage Experimental Festival (Montreal), and others. Her installation works have been exhibited in galleries and digital arts festivals worldwide.
She’s the author of four books, a coloring book, and three journals. After the heartfelt reception of Grief is an Origami Swan, Saint-Michel released the highly experimental poetry collection, Saint Agatha Mother Redeemer, and the accompanying Saint Agatha Mother Redeemer Coloring Book. She’s since published her second poetry collection, Liner Notes for Getting Out Without Catching Fire (available in Deluxe and High-legibility editions), and an accompanying experimental music album, Getting Out Without Catching Fire. Saint-Michel also released a set of journals based on the poetry of Walt Whitman. When she isn't creating art books, she is filming, tending her land art piece [poetry forest], and pressing flowers.
Saint-Michel's artistic journey has taken her from the rolling hills and river bluffs of the Missouri River to the banks of the River Thames in London. She now resides in New York. In October 2024, she graduated with Distinction from the MA program in Artists’ Film & Moving Image. She has also deepened her practice through filmmaking courses at Seattle’s Northwest Film Forum and poetry manuscript workshops at the Unterberg Poetry Center n New York.
Wide-ranging influences include poetry filmmakers Margaret Tait and Cecilia Vicuña; experimental filmmakers Stan Brakhage, Nam Jun Paik, Rose Lowder, Antoinetta Angelidi; artist musicians Laurie Andersen, Yoko Ono, Daniel Johnston, PJ Harvey; poets Wisława Szymborska, CA Conrad, Patti Smith; choreographers Deborah Hay, Merce Cunningham, Blondell Cummings; and the Fluxus and free jazz movements. View CV
MICHÈLE SAINT-MICHEL. Will to Power, 2024. Acrylic, diatomaceous earth (fossilized micro-algae skeletons), poetry. Installation view: ‘wolf Mad Mad’ APT Gallery, South London, Deptford, UK, 2024
Artist Statement
Like water, I believe artists are now challenged to become persistent, erosive, and devastating. At the same time, we must be yielding, restorative, and life-giving. Our works must operate with entangled multiplicity.
Beginning with granular texts and words, I pull the lens back to reveal landscapes and ontologies ripe for exploration. The media I use—language, moving image, sound work, preserved plants, poetic scores—converge in a space where futures of care can be imagined.
My works ask: What can grow where rupture has been?
Message me about speaking engagements, collaborations, or performances via the Contact form.
![Installation view of Michèle Saint-Michel’s 2021 multi-screen work [[even a stopped clock is right twice a day]] at Electric Medway Digital Arts Festival in Kent, UK.](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5755d383cf80a17536d67cd6/8dd2906d-ee7e-450e-9826-58482e2071e0/ElectricMedway2021.jpeg)
MICHÈLE SAINT-MICHEL. [[even a stopped clock is right twice a day]] 2021. Digital HD, Quadraphonic sound by Sophie Stone; Color; 16m02s. Installation view, Electric Medway Digital Arts Festival, Kent, UK.
Experimental Filmmaking & Poetry Film
My moving image practice explores layered, poetic time through 16 mm film, sound, choreography, and somatic language to create tactile, multi-sensory experiences of memory, grief, and quantum entanglement. Screenings at Prismatic Ground (NYC), Cadence Poetry Film Festival, and Dérapage Experimental Festival keep me rooted among leading NYC experimental filmmakers.
Recent Screening Highlights
- Millennium Film Workshop — THE QUEST
- Manchester International Film Festival — Lost Sock Collection
- Maysles Cinema, NYC — STARTLE RESPONSE
→ See my full film portfolio
MICHÈLE SAINT-MICHEL. 21 Scores for Losing Yourself in a Body, 2024. 16mm, hand-processed B&W film, digitally scanned with digital HD video; Stereo sound; Colour; 23m01s. Installation view, Laurie Grove Baths, South London, New Cross, UK. Photo credit: Hanna Moon
Michèle Saint-Michel’s works create spaces for collective tenderness, radical healing, and necessary conversations around grief, memory, disability justice, and feminist futures. Her practice, rooted in somatic cinema and poetic experimentation, doesn’t just represent experiences—it transforms how they’re felt, shared, and held.
Books on Grief & Experimental Poetry
From the pressed-flower art book Grief is an Origami Swan to the erasure-poetry collection Saint Agatha Mother Redeemer, my titles invite readers to slow down, breathe, and begin again.
Featured Title — Grief is an Origami Swan
Part guide, part art object: fold a swan, honour the one you’ve lost, and join thousands who’ve found gentle relief in its pages.
Grief is an Origami Swan, Bad Saturn, 2020
Curating & Programming in New York
As a woman film curator in New York, I programme series at Millennium Film Workshop, championing under-screened voices in experimental and poetry film. Recent programmes include Life and Death Are the Same Line Viewed from Different Sides and Between a Frame and a Soft Place.
Introducing The Poetic Lens, Millennium Film Workshop, 2025. Michèle Saint-Michel introducing programming at Millennium Film Workshop, New York
My Practice at a Glance
Experimental filmmaker working at the edges of language and image
I create hybrid moving image works that layer 16 mm film, sound, choreography, and poetic structure. My films have screened at Prismatic Ground (NYC), Dérapage (Montreal), Cadence (Seattle), and other international festivals.Poet and grief-book author rooted in ritual and materiality
Books like Grief is an Origami Swan and Saint Agatha Mother Redeemer offer embodied frameworks for mourning and reflection. Origami Swan was featured on the Today Show and has supported thousands in their grief journeys.Intermedia artist exploring quantum metaphysics and feminist ecologies
My installations, poetry films, and sculptural books often incorporate preserved plants, sound scores, and time-based media to ask how care, memory, and survival coexist across dimensions.Curator and community builder in New York’s artist film scene
I curate film programs at Millennium Film Workshop and lead the Artist Film Club, a monthly crit series for experimental and time-based media artists.Advocate for access, healing, and non-extractive art practice
My work is grounded in disability justice, alternative economies of care, and the belief that art can be erosive, life-giving, and entangled all at once.
Let’s Connect
Email: michelesaintmichel@gmail.com | Instagram: @michelesaintmichel | Download my CV →
FAQ
What is a poetry film?
A hybrid form that blends cinematic language with the rhythms of poetry—voice, text, or visual verse.Where can I find your books?
My books are available via Amazon and Bookshop.org, as well as your local independent bookstores and gallery shops. Request it by name!Here’s a full list of currently available titles:
Art Books & Poetry Collections
- Grief is an Origami Swan: An Art Book About Grief
→ Amazon | Bookshop.org - Saint Agatha Mother Redeemer
→ Amazon | Bookshop.org - Liner Notes for Getting Out Without Catching Fire (Deluxe Edition)
→ Amazon | Bookshop.org - Liner Notes for Getting Out Without Catching Fire (Standard / High-Legibility Edition)
→ Amazon
Coloring Book
- Saint Agatha Mother Redeemer Coloring Book
→ Amazon | Bookshop.org
Journals
- Experiments in Dreaming: A Lined Journal
→ Amazon | Bookshop.org - Journeywork of the Stars: A Dotted Journal
→ Amazon | Bookshop.org - A Journal of Gigantic Beauty: A Lined Journal
→ Amazon | Bookshop.org
For signed copies, bulk orders, or special editions, feel free to reach out through my Contact Form.