War and Ornament, 2017.
[Guerre et ornement] Photomural, printing on paper, iridescent gift-wrap, coloured tracing paper, binding paper, 4x2 m.
During my stay in Shanghai in 2016 I developed while using papers a practice between fixing and moving forms. This has allowed me to act by folding, cutting, hanging, in effective interventions on a short time scale. This practice was mostly inspired by the vast creativity of paper decoration in public display during the Chinese New Year.
Shortly after I became passionate about the writings of Jacques Soulillou, Le décoratif [The Decorative], 1990 and Le livre de l’ornement et de la guerre [The Book of the Ornament and the War], 2003, a sociological and anthropological study on the relationship between ornaments, decorative items and war. The decor has to do with law and power, with the outpouring, the non-restrictive, the multiplicity, the threat of invasion. The contempt of the decorative is linked to disdain of women’s work and non-european art. It is a ground for establishing social legitimacy, the decor is where any power look for their sense of affirmation.
In the old library collection of isdaT, my research led me to Le Japon illustré [The Japan Illustrated] by Félicien Challaye and published in 1915. I use the photograph of a child holding a basket of cakes tucked with the Rising Sun Flag. In this context the flag is an ornament of power, the expression of military expansionism and violent nationalism, one part of the decorative purpose.
By reframing and expanding those archive photograph the picture create a scenography where the print give the illusion of a door piercing the wall and by using colored papers I collected, I try to get a fictional space, between 2D and 3D.
Shortly after I became passionate about the writings of Jacques Soulillou, Le décoratif [The Decorative], 1990 and Le livre de l’ornement et de la guerre [The Book of the Ornament and the War], 2003, a sociological and anthropological study on the relationship between ornaments, decorative items and war. The decor has to do with law and power, with the outpouring, the non-restrictive, the multiplicity, the threat of invasion. The contempt of the decorative is linked to disdain of women’s work and non-european art. It is a ground for establishing social legitimacy, the decor is where any power look for their sense of affirmation.
In the old library collection of isdaT, my research led me to Le Japon illustré [The Japan Illustrated] by Félicien Challaye and published in 1915. I use the photograph of a child holding a basket of cakes tucked with the Rising Sun Flag. In this context the flag is an ornament of power, the expression of military expansionism and violent nationalism, one part of the decorative purpose.
By reframing and expanding those archive photograph the picture create a scenography where the print give the illusion of a door piercing the wall and by using colored papers I collected, I try to get a fictional space, between 2D and 3D.