Project Description

The exhibition ‘Lost and found’ showcases the work made during my three-month-long artist’s residency at the Musée-Atelier du Verre in Northern France. The works are divided in to two series. The first, Lost and Found, deals with the concept of collective and individual identity through the everyday form of a purse: a belonging which is often lost, stolen or mislaid, full of sentimental value and charged with personal memories. To create this first series of purses, I invited the local residents to visit me at the studio and show me the contents of their purses. Through printing and photography techniques, I built on the theme of traces, highlighting the objects and details found in the purses to forge histories and construct identities. The resulting imagery, trapped in the material, expresses notions of time, memories and sentiments which lean towards metaphorical interpretations in relation to one’s own past.

Apart from the ‘Lost and Found’ series of purses, I also worked on an installation ‘The Human Presence in the Absence of a   Figure’, taking inspiration from an abandoned zinc architectural detail emblematic of the area together with imagery inspired by writings, quotations, road maps and other architectural details. My chosen form of the breastplate – a form which I have used intermittently for the past few years –  although it protects, also represents a certain vulnerability at a given time and its fragility raises the question of threatened identities and personal expression in contemporary society. The objects contain a vitrified memory, but the body remains absent. The installation of the work and organisation within the space was of great importance to me. By juxtaposing and repeating forms, I increase my understanding of the relationship between the past and present and by multiplying the breastplates, the work belongs to both time and space. The red line, (fil rouge) on the floor acts as a subtle indicator to visitors of the show the route to be taken, that is, the necessary journey. The wall-mounted piece ‘From the things we can’t remember…’ also takes inspiration from the zinc architectural detail and contains potraits of local residents reminiscent of old daguerreotypes. To view the exhibition catalogue, please click on the following link: LostandFound