Weāve recently spent two great weeks in Vannes, a small city in Brittany, France. We were invited by Le Traverse – a unique art project and a venue – for a residency alongside 20 other artists.
Each artist was given an empty room to transform from scratch, and together the rooms became one big group exhibition. During our stay, we created six wooden sculptures and an installation.
We came to the residency with very little planned. We wanted to leave room for the place itself to inspire us, so we could react to it through the work. The only thing we knew for certain was that we wanted to experiment with sculpting in wood – something we had never done before.
We began shaping large trunks of cypress wood collected locally with chainsaws, slowly discovering what it was we were trying to create. Inspired by the megaliths of ancient eras, and by sun-worshipping cultures, we became interested in rituals surrounding eclipses.
In many of these cultures, eclipses carried deep spiritual meaning. When the moon covers the sun and the world falls into darkness, there is suddenly room for mystery, fear, and imagination. We started imagining the totemic creatures we created as belonging to the aftermath of an eclipse – the strange figures that emerged in the shadows of the moon, revealed when the fluorescent spectrum of the sunlight returned.
The exhibitionis now open to the public for free, so you are all invited. It was a very special and inspiring experience, big thank you to Gael and Laurent.
