Art project: fabric postcards
The XX th century saw the birth and the death of the Vosgien Textile Industry. Today there are only empty spaces in the territory left. Like wounds in the Vosges' history. I chose to show only a kind of sweetness. The transience of those factories' existence which lasted less than a century. Melancholy remembrance of a bygone era – time of full employment, union struggle, growth, hope of better tomorrows. Memories are of course polished by time; « It was nice... But hard too. It wasn't like now ». Here begins the resilience process. Sand and grass have replaced those industrial areas. The postcards serve as a relay to collective memory. Photographs pass from hand to hand, drawings appeal to remember. These are thin, clumsy, close to be swept by the pattern. But finally, it doesn't evoke the Vosges only, it evokes our parents', great parents' or great great parents' history, as a collective family album.
A series of 17 fabric postcards with testimonies written on the back. The fabrics are originated from the factory in which my grandfather worked his whole life. I have drawn the factories using as reference photo-cards of the north-east of France.
Read more about the project Carte Postales Grand Teint
2012