My father laughs each time he describes how I used to pick up little stones along the path during our walks in the mountains when I was about three. I would stop every two meters and everybody had to wait for me. I once said to my mother that I hated green. “You do?” she asked, “Such a pity. Green is beautiful. It’s the colour of grass. It’s the colour of hope.” Every single weekend, they would take us to the forest, my sister, my brother and I. My great-uncle, who periodically got on his motorcycle to come and visit us in the French Yvelines, joined us on our walks. He taught me the names of the plants and the wild mushrooms. He showed me how to play the trumpet on a dandelion stalk. He explained why the hoverfly disguises itself as a wasp. We would crack rotting logs open and lift stones, chasing woodlice, larvae and other crawling creatures that keep the forest so extraordinarily alive even when it looks dead - catalyzing the inevitable return of green.
I guess nothing is ever lost. It is just hidden under a stone.
Collecting objects that others might have thrown away or simply overlooked. Collecting images, by chance, in the forest. That is where it all begins. Things that apparently have nothing to do with each other – plastic office sheets, an old piece of cotton, photographs of a lush green nature – are intimately brought together. The process includes printing, weaving, lacerating, enlarging, shrinking, lightening and baking. ‘Strange encounters’ unfold in many forms as a natural consequence of these experiments. Both strength and fragility claim their place and find balance.