Mémoires en plastique / Plastic Memories (Audiovisual Installation)

(scroll down for pictures) 

When we look at these chairs, the same chairs that populate the monotony of our daily lives, a metamorphosis takes place. Transported into a bare space, they become the protagonists of an installation entitled ‘Plastic Memories’. At B’sarya for Arts, these trivial objects are transformed into works of art, revealing a hidden dimension. Plastic, that vile, practical and ubiquitous material of our time, becomes the canvas. These chairs, anonymous and familiar, prop up our discussions, our silences and our daydreams. They enrich our social life, but deprived of human warmth, they disintegrate, impassive spectators of the passage of time.

It’s this remnant of humanity that fascinates me. I set out to crystallise the fragments of life and memory absorbed by the chairs. Covering each of them with a montage of artistic images, I tried to capture the ephemeral, to conjure up the ghosts of the stories and memories embedded in each artist. Each image is a silent transcription of the spoken word, a desperate attempt to capture the moment. Here, the art of linguistics becomes a funeral dirge, celebrating the importance of dialogue and human interaction, turning the chairs into spectators of our temporality. Beyond the contrast between the banal and the sublime, this work becomes an act of communion, a visceral need for communication. Embbeded into the audio pieces, speech, the breath that makes us human, makes it possible to transcribe our ephemeral lives. The chairs are placed in a circle, all interconnected by the auditory pieces, as if the breath of ideas came from a place identical to every human being. By sitting on these chairs, you perform a profoundly human gesture, you merge with the memory, you feel the spectral presence of those who have sat there before you. This harmless gesture invites you to make the works for art your own, through gesture, through touch, to plunge into otherness. Each spectator is confronted with a dizzying introspection: what would your chair say about you? What would those you pass by without ever noticing say? What imprint do you leave on the fabric of existence? The chairs urge us to contemplate the indelible trace of our humanity, to meditate on our transience and permanence, to see the ordinary as a doorway to the infinite.

Artists: Conception and design: PADOU / Audio pieces: Tamer Elshabrawy, Moe Choucair (Beirut) / Textes: Padou, Julia Foster, Moe Choucair, recorded zoom conversations

Technical Description: Monobloc chairs (plastic), printed with vinyl adhesive film , headphones

This Audiovisual Installation has been produced and showcased for the collective exhibition and residency, "My North is Your South – Creating a Space for Conversations" at "B'sarya for Arts" in Alexandria, Egypt between May and July 2024 - more informations about the project on mniys.art

Produced by B’sarya for Arts, V XX ZWEETZ, and Radio Alhara, with the support of Prohelvetia Cairo – Swiss Art Council

Photos © Julia Foster, Dmitrii Makhonin