News about the evolution of an installation in the making
Did you catch the reference to a castle at the end of mylast letter?
"A contradiction in the work is the use of fine paints on cardboard.
It feels almost anarchistic to elevate this humble material by treating it as one would a room in a castle…"
Château d'Ancy-le-Franc
This year, I have been regularly visiting the Renaissance castle in Ancy-le-Franc to sketch.
Delicate threads of observations and ideas have been spinning a curious web in my research: the symbols, the strange beasts, the slates along with a whole tapestry of symbolism.
However, part of the castle's roof has recently been replaced. The old, abandoned slate tiles possess an astonishing beauty and over 100 years of solid protection, in stark contrast to the unstable habitats of poverty.
The use of chalk evokes a way of learning at school, memory, but also what we want to erase and make invisible for fear of disturbing complacency.
On one side of each slate a chalk drawing shows dome tents, thin membranes of shelter that evokeinstability, the provisional, the ephemeral that collides with the heritage, the stability and durability of the castle.
On the other side, there is a selection of phrases that relate in one way or another to the poetics of my research on SKINT.
Phrases from my own texts are freely copied in chalk, and other ancient phrases in Latin and Roman capitals are taken from inside the castle but also from Nisi Dominus (from Antonio Vivaldi which I’m obsessed by)...!
In this way, the daily battles of survival, poverty, impermanence and vulnerability take shape in a single object, resonating with the permanence, solidity and protection of a privileged life.
Next time I'll let you into my impressions of the mind-warping historical object, depicting another battle that was at the origin of SKINT.
