CARNIVAL WOOD
The Portuguese word for wood is madeira. Madeira is associated with Matéria. Madeira – matéria – matter. These words send us back to the body's presence and to the origin of things.
This work was born in the Vincennes woods. I began by collecting tree branches that had fallen to the ground. They were fine, smooth, rough, long and twisted. I selected them, gathered them together and put them in order. Coloured ribbons helped me to create new structures for these branches of wood, like a kind of writing that mixes memory and hope. The ribbons not only glowed, they seemed damp as well.
When I attached these ribbons, I found they brought back memories to me, memories of Brazilian festivals, like that of the Church of Bonfin where one wears a coloured ribbon to signify hope. I was reminded too of the streamers that are fired during Carnival and which leave their traces in the air before they fall to the ground. These memories accompanied the repetitive movements that I had to use to tie together the branches. I was reminded of other gestures and of memories. I felt like I was performing a ritual.
I find that the relation between this work and the Carnival is rather playful. Both are linked to a desire to reorganise things, to play, to give a rhythm to a world too set in its ways, to make the world dance. For the last ten years, my work has been profoundly linked to a geometry that tries to show the enormous scope of things in giving them a certain framework.
(for the catalog of Bois de Carnival exhibition Galeru Gallery)
