Speakers & moderators

Sarah Valente (born in 1988 in Paris) is a French self-taught visual artist.

Her quest: to show the invisible, the hidden sides of the world, the unknown aspects of nature as well as the infinite richness of forests and their inhabitants. 

She has been working on ultraviolet light since she discovered that insects and certain animals perceive the world as a succession of fluorescent signals that allow them to find their way, to feed themselves, and to live.  Her work is accompanied by a principle of double reading: we can observe it either with our human vision thanks to daylight, or with an animal vision thanks to Uv light, known as Black light. 

Her links with the forest go back to her childhood, spent outside the city, raised by an Italian father and a French-Ukrainian mother.  The natural environment of her youth quickly became a major source of inspiration.  The playful meanderings and childhood exploration of the surrounding forests turned into a sincere passion for trees and the forest that is now the main driving force behind her work. 

She is currently a resident at the POUSH Manifesto workshops in Clichy, Paris, France. In 2022, she launched the GreenLine Foundation, whose objective is to raise public awareness of the preservation of forests and large primary forests through art. The funds collected are redistributed to different initiatives aiming at sanctuarizing, protecting and sometimes recreating the great forests of our planet. She herself donates 20% of her income to these initiatives.