Christelle Oyiri

Christelle Oyiri is a Paris-based artist, journalist, and producer/DJ (under the pseudonym CRYSTALLMESS). She began her career as a journalist for Vice, The Guardian, The Fader, and Brain Magazine, covering music and culture, notably grime. Combining film, music, performance, and sculpture, her radically interdisciplinary work deals with themes of alienation and alternative temporalities. As a DJ and producer, Oyiri’s eclectic style spans from zouk to dancehall, Detroit techno, and Afro-trance. Faced with the deliberate erasure of narratives outside the dominant canon, Oyiri looks for information between the lines. Her research is focused on the tonalities, textures, and visual vernacular of the music, art, popular culture, and youth cultures within and outside the African diaspora.

Her work has been exhibited in institutions such as Centre Pompidou (Paris), Lafayette Anticipations (Paris), Tramway (Glasgow), Auto Italia Gallery (London), Los Angeles Nomadic Division, Gladstone Gallery (NYC), Espace Arlaud (Lausanne), and Ars Electronica (Austria), among others.