The hymn of ruin
A project with the encouragement of ENSA Bourges
CURATOR: Jingwen ZHANG
Exhibition from April 1 to 15, 2016
Avaricum Bourges Shopping Center
8 Avenue de Peterborough 18000 Bourges, France
The city of Bourges rests on Roman ruins, vestiges that the city proudly bears in its history. A modern city with a medieval landscape, where several periods of time coexist.
But RUINS are not always stones sleeping in the sand for eternity, they can be made of memories, of dreams, of places we have stayed in. These vestiges vanish in a day when you leave them. These are times that belong to us, personally, and that we can share. For some of us, ruin has a more current meaning; the vestiges of the present which are what we have left after a disaster, and which must be replaced, reconstructed, day by day.
The installations of YOKO IINUMA, Japanese artist, whose work embraces architectural forms and treats the body as the house of the soul, and clothing as an extension of this same body. The passage of time acting on our bodies, governing our movements. Her doubts and questions about her own body motivated her plastic creation.
MATHIEU GRUET, an artist from Dijon, has an approach that also deals with the passage of time, physical, but also media, to tell us about the ruin of the image, of the distorted, constrained media image. His fascination with strong images that multiply and mark our eyes like a collective media memory.
LU HANG, from Beijing, also uses political images in his work, and in his latest collages, he creates kinds of memorials, architectures.
ARTHUR BARBE, born in Bourges, addresses the previously mentioned themes in his films halfway between fiction and travelogue. He translates this reflection of the fantasized, forgotten city, through images and hijacked objects, as if childhood could go on forever.
MIZUKI SHIBATA, from Tokyo, who builds objects with the dust left on the places where she passes. She is a mediator who connects a past, present and future reality in the place that is/was/will be - Avaricum.