“Pour ce(ux) qui reste(nt)” Exposition Anne Laval

Exhibition at the Sainte Gauburge priory.
The materials that lie dormant in my workshop sometimes resonate with the places where I exhibit and which I immerse myself in. In the church of Sainte Gauburge, which is very refined, there is only space, at the service of silence, of meditation. Religion is almost impalpable there.
Christian Boltanski said: “I want people to enter my exhibitions as they enter a church”.
I have always had a fascination with religious buildings and relics. In my childhood, I was impressed that people could keep hair, tissue, bones, water believing that it could have powers, because they belonged to a saint. It seemed completely incredible and imaginative to me. My titles of works are often equipped with symbols, and when I transform materials through the action of creation I sometimes feel a little like a witch. In this building, the light of the choir, close to the sky, contrasts with the other part of the nave, darker, formerly devoted to the peasants for prayer. This opposition interested me for the rest of my work.

Installation “The three shrouds of the World”
For this installation I imagined a shroud, which, instead of being for a body, would be for the whole world. So I created three shrouds which have as raw material a winter veil. This is usually placed on the sleeping earth to protect it from winter, while awaiting its rebirth in spring. Then I drew matrices, representing invented or suggested continents, which become like patterns and are printed on this veil. I wanted to suggest the pain of the world, of humanity, current and past. I tried to evoke the absurd borders caused by policies and religions that neglect humanity. These “shrouds of the World” are like skins: one has been dipped in wax, the other has been pricked with wool and the last has been burned. Their translucence demonstrates fragility. They are placed in the dark part of the church. Suspended from the vault to the ground, they can undulate with the air or the presence of the spectator's moving body. Like a living trace of a sensitive map.

Installation “Fossil Worlds”
Another material comes into play for this installation: porcelain. For me, it has always been a symbol of bones. With this material, I molded body parts of people I met. The porcelain was stamped into the molds to make the impression.
Imagining that there may have been an ossuary in the church, I associated the porcelain with “copper hairs” which leave a black mark when burned in the oven.
This association transforms materials into fossils. The body parts stamped in the shape of continents, the burnt and rooted copper hair draw maps, create an imaginary geography. They are positioned on a circular bed of ash like a world map evoking a fossil world.

Installation “Forest of bones”
The idea was born from reading a book by Claude Ponti. The character in search of his parents arrives at the home of a witch who has a forest of bones around her house. She buried her victims, and they grew back into bone trees. This upset me. With porcelain, during one winter (the time of nature's death), I shaped branches on a steel wire. I then braided them to create a forest. This work is normally presented suspended, but due to the presence of the altar, I opted for a new arrangement which makes it appear as an offering.

The “Lost Landscape” installation, a suspension in stainless steel gauze, symbolizing a strange wind, between water and air, is installed in the middle of the stained glass windows to take advantage of a shadow cast by the chance of a ray of sunlight, trace ephemeral and intangible.
The “Reliquary Breaths” and the “Little Foams” come to life in the swimming pools, spaces which were used to empty the holy water.

Thus each part of the church dialogues with a work or an installation, is reflected in them in a sensitive osmosis. They reveal each other through imperceptible links, a particular relationship with light and the moment.