Françoise Schein was born in Brussels in 1953. She studied architecture at La Cambre in the Belgian capital, after which she went to Columbia University to study urban design, subsequently staying in New York for over a decade. During her stay, she studied art with Robert Morris at NYU. Currently, in parallel to her numerous international projects, Schein teaches at the ESAM School of Arts and Media in Caen.
Schein’s art is one of communication at a fundamental level. Inspired by her stays in big cities with highly developed public transport networks, the artist became fascinated by maps, itineraries and the iconographic efficiency of public transit. Through a transport system and its related maps, one gets to know a city and its people, and experiences the foundational social tissues that connect places and individuals. This layering of human meaning has been the crux of Schein’s art since its inception. Tribulations from a point A (departure) to a point B (destination) have visually informed her creations in the form of zigzagging, sometimes superimposed lines, symbolising impossible journeys along routes that do not exist.
At the core of her message, there is the need to connect people, kindness, beauty and goodness through a reaffirming of fundamental rights. Hence why in 1997, she formally founded the Association Inscrire, an NGO dedicated to the dissemination of citizenship concepts and human rights through innovative participative artworks. Pedagogic in her methodological approach, her dedication to this cause has led her to artistic interventions in Brazil, Belgium, France, Israel, Palestine, Germany, England, Portugal, Spain, Uruguay and Haiti with her project ‘to inscribe the human rights in school classes and on the walls of cities’.
After having visually inspired her, public transport benefitted from Schein’s creativity. The artist has installed permanent artworks in underground stations across Europe and the world: the metro station Concorde in Paris (1989-90) about the French Revolution; the metro station St Gilles in Brussels (1992) about human rights and European borders; the subway station Parque in Lisbon (1994) about human rights and Portuguese discoveries around the world in the Middle Ages; the façade of the Judeo-Arab Cultural Center in Haifa, Israel (1993) about peace; the subway station Universitetet in Stockholm (1998) about human rights and global environmental issues; the subway station Westhafen in Berlin (2000) about human rights and migration issues; ‘The Garden of Human Rights’ at the Rhododendron Park in Bremen (2001); and the subway station Siqueira Campos in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro (2003) about human rights and slavery and racism issues. She created the project called A City as a tree for Human Rights (2009) on the façade of the Municipal Theater of Ramallah in Palestine. In 2017, she finalised a project in the Luz subway station in Sao Paulo about the relationship between human rights within the context of Brazilian history. In 2016, in Brussels, she created Le Grand Banket, a major public art piece conceived as a public banquet with the participation of local inhabitants.
Schein’s recent solo exhibitions read as follows: À table citoyens !, Forum des Halles, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium (2017); What about God?, Galerie V Contemporary, Paris, France (2016); Le grand banket, La Centrale, Center for Contemporary Arts, Brussels, Belgium (2016); Françoise Schein, artista dos direitos humanos, musée MAB FAAP Museu de Arte (2015), Brasileiro – Fundação Armando Alvaraes Penteado, Sao Paulo, Brazil (2015); Paris / Rio de Janeiro, de la concorde aux favelas, Galerie V Contemporary, Paris, France (2014); Françoise Schein, artiste des droits humains, Centre International pour la Ville, l’Architecture et le Paysage, Brussels, Belgium (2014); Françoise Schein, le Laboratoire, Galerie Artitude, Brussels, Belgium (2014); De l’empreinte au partage, Salle Allende, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium, (2011); De parque para o mundo, Musée Nationale des Azulejos de Lisbonne, Lisbon, Portugal (2007); Movimentos de vida, Galerie Ratton, Lisbon, Portugal (2007); Le chemin des droits, exhibition by Françoise Schein with the Association Inscrire, Institut Franco Portugais de Lisbonne, Lisbon, Portugal (2007).
