Laurent Pernel

“I work in a contextual relation with the place which accommodates me, through a physical and sensory approach to space. It is by way of tinkering and bricolage that I question architecture, thanks to simple gestures like glueing, tearing, cutting, and tying. The praxis of drawing comes prior to my interventions, like a recording phase enabling me to understand the place.
On the same reading line I try to put places and things which nothing would get to me to meet. My research is often developed by a subtraction of elements to reach something simple and very instantaneous, like something flagrant coming forth. The project notion is recurrent here. Without being in an architect’s attitude, I use his tools, such as the maquette and the plan.
The basis of my work relies on sculpture, in quite a broad sense if we consider that architecture can be an inhabited sculpture. This relation to sculpture can also take the form of videos and photos.
Since 2011, my photographic work has taken shape in particular through the production of booklets in very small editions (five at most), thus lending them the status of an artist’s book. This form interests me for its production autonomy and its low cost, opening up a very extensive field of experimentation for me.
As for my production of videos, this is divided into two themes. On the one hand, a set of situations, gestures and performative actions in front of the camera, often in an urban context where I stage direct myself. The other section is a work on the landscape, in which I set up fictional situations with characters. The video editing refers to cinema and proposes a possible story, which often eludes me.”

Laurent Pernel, 2012
Translated by Simon Pleasance, 2015