The Image of Things and Not the Things Themselves
in « Passer d’un rêve à l’autre / To pass from one dream to another », Biennale de Lyon 2026, curated by Catherine Nichols
Installation in two galleries of the Musée des Tissus et des Arts Décoratifs, 2026
In the six display cases of two galleries at the Musée des Tissus et des Arts Décoratifs de Lyon, left in semi-darkness, six silent tableaux unfold. The galleries have been preserved in the state in which they were left after the collections were removed around five years ago. The faint glow of the old fluorescent lights, the English green, mauve and verdigris tones of the walls, together with the reflections in the large glass cases, evoke a hieratic setting in which the objects appear and disappear, as does our own reflection within these transparent mirrors.
The silent narratives exchanged by the objects evoke the Middle East, the Orient, India and Asia; the empires that shaped the Silk Road, and landscapes whose borders were endlessly woven, stitched and erased. The textiles that travelled these routes are like the people who carried them: they gradually fade into time.
