Ophélie Mercier

Ophélie Mercier is a PhD Student in the Department of Languages and Cultures at Ghent University (Belgium).  She graduated with a master’s in Conflict, Violence and Development (SOAS, London) during which she conducted research on theatre as a form of resistance in Palestine, doing ethnographic fieldwork with the Freedom Theatre. She worked in Cairo from 2013-16 as a street clown performer and social theatre practitioner with the collective Outa Hamra. Back in France, she coordinated for four years the organisation Caravan, an international network for youth and social circus. In this framework, she coordinated the international research project ‘Circus as Intercultural Encounter’. In her PhD, she is exploring the life trajectories of Egyptian artists residing in Europe focusing on the reconfigurations of their artistic practices and looking at the transnational dynamics of the production and distribution of their artworks.  She also examines how artists navigate the labelling processes of their identity at stake in the artistic field and how these categorisations can, in turn, foster political mobilisation.