The Roy­al­lieu Library host­ed Valem’s works along­side cre­ations made by par­tic­i­pants in the mod­el­ling work­shop held on March 17 and 19, 2026.

Valem, aka Valérie More­au, is a sculp­tor and instruc­tor. She is also an engi­neer and served as a fac­ul­ty mem­ber and researcher at UTC from 2008 to 2022; she her­self is a UTC grad­u­ate. She nat­u­ral­ly jumped at the chance to lead the mod­el­ling work­shop offered dur­ing Equal­i­ty Month. “We had two two-hour work­shop ses­sions. I broad­ened the theme of this work­shop a bit to dis­cuss ‘Women AND Sci­ence’ with a dozen reg­is­tered women—students and staff mem­bers from UTC. Their works con­veyed a great deal of emo­tion, poet­ry, and conviction—it was both gen­tle and pow­er­ful,” Valem says hap­pi­ly. “I dis­cov­ered sculp­ture while I was still in school. I knew right away that this was where I belonged. I was good at draw­ing, and that’s why I decid­ed to go to UTC—because it had a design pro­gramme.”

Sculpting the Living

Valem sculpts liv­ing matter—humans, ani­mals, and, since 2023, plants. “In fact, now all my cre­ations blend the three forms of life: human, ani­mal, and plant. My sculp­tures speak to the bonds that con­nect liv­ing beings and the neces­si­ty of those bonds,” explains the artist, who exhibits through­out France and also per­forms in unique live shows. It’s a sort of the­atri­cal piece dur­ing which she sculpts, com­bin­ing artis­tic ges­ture with dis­course and the emo­tion that goes along with it. Valem sculpts on stage while draw­ing on dis­ci­plines such as phi­los­o­phy, eco­nom­ics, and eco­log­i­cal sciences…

KD