THE SNAIL FOREST
One day, a former friend had a crazy idea: Create a gigantic snail, invite his friends to take it over. Thus was born the snail forest! With a lot of personal commitment from the organizers, time and energy they built a huge Dome, with a ceiling height of almost 10 meters. The snail’s shell was born. We had to build the head and then the tail. We were about twenty artists to invest it. The watchword: nature, its beauty, its preservation. We have all made installations … 3d sculpture, huge critters, metal face, mirrors, curves, colors and above all RECOVERY! Lots of materials from past commercial events (platform from the Lafayette gallery, wood from the Dior show at the Rodin museum, etc.). While everything would have ended up in the trash, the snail team recovered, transported, sublimated.
Months of preparation, installation and a lot of solidarity between everyone to support each other, advise each other, help each other.
For my part I wanted to bring back a few dozen times to try to bring everything together. So I made dozens of metal flowers.
The main ones, over a meter wide, occurred throughout the dome: some left in raw metal, others painted in spectral colors.
and then a multitude of small ones, like a scattering of pollen and natural magic.
I baptized them “Chrysafysalys or the clement flowers” (another small tribute to Clem).
Some flowers remained like blooms. Others half-open and some completely open in their bloom. The idea was to imagine a scattering of seeds. Each heart of flowers was perforated with thousands of trousers, clouds revealed by the light bulbs in the heart of the nectar. A play of light that is difficult to capture with my amateur photos.
I had to prepare the manufacturing plans and then cut the metal, with a jigsaw … hundreds of meters to cut the material. then assemble, handle, paint, transport, suspend. Three weeks of hard work, sleepless nights, the muscles heating up, the timing racing. Good body aches. Another crazy project. I had to cancel a hike in Armenia and on a wall in the USA which had to follow one another but when you love you don’t count. And that always makes that plane less …
This project is a manifesto for the respect of nature. To sign life and to evoke the praise of slowness.
The snail had to move everywhere in France … And then there was a succession of unfortunate events, cancellations, withdrawals, false promises, unexpected problems and to top it off and slow down our crawling animal: here we are the Corona got involved. Such is life …
The snail would not have roamed large territories but the leftover memories, the smiles, the emotions and the desire to believe in it, all together.
Thank you to the whole team for their invitation.
Even though all the artists ended up volunteering on this project, it was ultimately an amazing experience on all levels.
Above some photos, from WORK IN PROGRESS to the final installation. Unfortunately it does not make anything in photo, you had to be there to be able to feel the whole. (and my photographic equipment and my shots are sorely lacking in professionalism but the idea is there)
With the artists:
ALEX PERRET, ANIS, BEERENS, BOJAN, DJALOUZ, DOUDOU’ STYLE, DOZE, EVAZESIR, FKDL, HAKIC, IZA ZARO, JIBE, LAPIN MUTANT,MADEMOISELLE MAURICE, MORNE, MOSKO, NOSBE, PHOTOGRAFFEE, REAONE, REMI CIERCO, SHAKA, SHOU VAGABOMBE, SLY2, SNEZ, SWAR, TITIFROMPARIS, VINIE et ANTIFAKTORY, WAYNE, 3615.