WRECKOLOGY

ELEUSIS21

In collaboration with Hortense Le Calvez.

The installation depicts a cartoonesque attempt to intervene on a mysterious emerging shape facing a concrete jetty. Below the barely perceptible tip, lies a large industrial engine abandoned for decades. The crane-like trebuchet sculpture depicts an uncertain gesture towards the sunken object. It is unclear whether the lines are made to extract it or to burry it further down its resting place. The location of the piece is at the intersection of a constellation of industrial, traditional and leisurely marine activities in Elefsina. The colorful visual language of the installation considers the possibilities of a cohabitation between the remains of industries and a decolonized coastline. The piece extends above and under the seascape to address the idea of the sea as a space for disposal and disappearance. Burial is lighter than retrieval, the sea carrying the weight itself. However, the vastness of the sea has vanished. One is left to contemplate the potential of scaling down and investing time into liberating spaces from objects with insignificant means perhaps, but joyfull at least.

The piece was created during the Initiator residency in the context of Eleusis 2021 European Capital of Culture. The one-month program in Elefsina, Greece, was imagined by the curator Eleni Riga, contemporary art director of Eleusis 2021, and focused on small scale public installation art. The project was coordinated by Vasilis Saltas and curated by Anne Langlois from 40mcube and Benoit-Marie Moriceau from the Mosquito Coast Factory Workshop.