HOME AFFAIRS MEETS
CAMILLE FOURNET
Following Camille Fournet’s invitation to conceive a creative project in tandem with the extension of the ateliers in Tergnier, France, the artist Oriane Déchery in turn invited three artists and designers to work in residence at the Maison’s leather goods atelier for more than one year. The Home Affairs team settled into the workshop alongside its employees to create a project of dual dimensions.
Oriane Déchery
Oriane is a visual artist and the founder of the association Home Affairs, an artistic residency that co-creates art in factories and construction environments. During her year-long residency at the Camille Fournet workshops, Oriane explored the relationship between hands and materials, thereby altering our perspective about the primary physical attribute of the artisans who create and embody vast knowledge.
Sculpting gestures at work, gradually, through observation, Oriane discovered an object that may well have been the starting point for it all: the cotton gloves that all artisans use to wipe their tools after applying color are like small paintings. The first part of the work was therefore sculptural. Oriane created three monumental hands that represent three different gestures by women artisans. Mounted on wheels, the pieces are mobile even though the gestures are not. In essence, they are the opposite of what she observed at the workbench, where gestures are an incessant choreography yet the body assumes a stationary posture. Removed from their context, these very present – and immense – pieces stand in full view, among the factory’s workers. To cover the sculptures, the artist collected excess administrative paperwork from every department, then ground it up to make paper maché.
Oriane Déchery then tackled another project. She asked approximately a hundred artisans to stop working for a moment so that she could photograph their hands, whose marks speak volumes about their work. She then glued and mounted these images permanently in those spaces where managers convene to make decisions. A means of placing supervised artisans and their bodies back in a position of power.
Romain Guillet
Romain Guillet is a designer and scenographer who works with museums and on live performances. Over the year he spent in Tergnier, he became immersed in the atelier’s tools and work environment and expressed a desire to highlight both the people and the spaces they occupy — two aspects that are central to the two works he created during his residency.
Romain imagined a series of more than one hundred magnetic accessories that are scattered throughout the factory. Is integrated and camouflaged in various places and spaces like elevators and sewing or coffee machines, this project includes buttons, wheels, levers, cranks, silicone body parts and hair. It’s a way of “hacking” machines, making them less efficient or less productive by rendering controls or moving parts inoperative. It's also a project that speaks of a body that merges with the machine it works with day-in, day-out.
Romain Guillet’s second piece is a large moveable screen, made from recycled leather, a primary material used in the workshop to create or reinforce various designs. A project designed on the scale of the new building's architecture, it was born of a desire to subvert luxury as precious, unique, and the result of great technical mastery. Here, the material is inexpensive, the assembly system requires no particular expertise, and the principle is infinitely reproducible. A scaled motif recalls alligator skin while also allowing it to be reproduced by the kilometer — and without the animal itself.
Virginie Yassef
During her residency, Virginie Yassef explored blending history and anthropology. That research led her to the banks of the Mississippi, home to a number of alligator farms. From there, she traced a historical thread, following the Natchez tribe of indigenous Native Americans who lived in the region. Using historical clues, she began to conceive an ensemble of artworks.
Three mobile, faux crocodilian rocks that can be moved from space to space, titled Pierre(1), Pierre(2), Pierre(3), come with three banners named Serpent Piqué (1,2,3). The three banners feature drawings with mysterious messages using discs made from alligator skin offcuts and assembled on a survival blanket with one side in silver foil.
Each rock has eyes. Potentially, the rocks have a gaze and, since they can see everything, they could fossilize a certain memory. The three rocks’ banners are likewise mobile and maneuverable. Though the objects suggest parades, demonstrations or protest, their message remains somewhat enigmatic. The materials used here are thermo-regulating, evoking a form of protection. The drawings compose stylized landscapes and seem to represent a world: the sun, a comet, stars, a plant, a tool, a UFO.
Maria Alcaide
For this workshop experience, Maria, a visual artist who also makes videos, texts and installations, came up with two works: Paysage de manufacture (Landscape of the Factory) and Portraits des manufactures (Factory Portraits). These twin pieces speak to each other, inform one another, and appear in each building at the factory.
Maria observed the gestures of artisans, the precision of their hands, and one day noticed that many workers, male or female, also had tattoos. Ultimately, tattoos are a class symbol. For Maria, it was truly important to create a contemporary portrait of the working class. And there was a direct reference between animal skin and the skin of those who work it.
For this second work, Maria focused on inverse processes. She tried take everything that’s inside and bring it out. She took a skin ‘skeleton’ complete with voids and filled the negative space with other materials and photos that also speak to emptiness and holes. She came up with the idea of installing the piece in a single empty space: Camille Fournet's new building.
Kevin, leather stock manager
Sarah, artisan
CAMILLE FOURNET ENJOYS PLAYING WITH MATERIALS AND COLORS. WE LOVE CREATORS, THEIR INVENTIVENESS, THEIR ABILITY AND THE WONDER THEY'RE CAUSING