Pauline Castra

With sculpture as my main focus, I bring into play objects that have been discarded, neglected, set aside, put in a corner, over there in the hallway, at the back of the museum… These possible historical reversals reveal themselves to me like as many symbols of a past activity. Hunted by archaeologists and coveted by historians, these artefacts become objects of desire, as Bénédicte Savoy (1) puts it.

Through this daily archaeology, I become the observer of a history that can be physically manipulated. Consequently, how are we to keep hold of these forms that evade us ?

The installation is conceived as a museographic tool that sacralises the poor and the mundane. From the display stand that raises and elevates the object to the glass casement that preserves, protects and keeps us at a distance, these installations become showcases for endangered forms. I am driven by the urgency to make, and because of this I magnify the inherent fragility of these gleaned rejects.

I reanimate these bodies through an act of reparation. By taking such care of them, I raise them up anew, I give them back their place and presence. For a short while, for the duration of an exhibition or an evening, I restore them to their former glory!

(1) See Bénédicte Savoy’s inaugural lecture, given at the Collège de France in March 2017. Objets du désir, Désirs d’objets. Histoire culturelle des patrimoines artistiques en Europe, XVIIIe-XXe siècle, Fayard, 2017.