Vestiges

This series establishes a link between archaeological remains and individual autobiographical memory.
As part of a creative project, I rubbed elbows with the antique collections of the Marseille History Museum for almost the entire year 2022.
The silent, tranquil presence of these fragments of monochrome stone works ended up imprinting a sensation in my memory. Persistent sensation, which at one point required materialization through my fingers.

We surround archaeological remains with all precautions, considering them as treasures, a part of our collective memory.
Museum conservation evolved during the 20th century: before the First World War, it was not uncommon for remains to be completely reconstructed, where one could barely distinguish the original material of the vestige from that of its reconstruction. This is the case of Roman statues exhibited at the Regional Archaeological Museum of Palermo, reconstructed, reinterpreted by Villanuova, at this time considered an artist.
In the 21st century, the situation is quite different: the pieces are either left in their original form, thus highlighting the accident that marked them, or reconstructed by very visibly differentiating the reconstruction.

What about our personal memory? About our intangible autobiographical memories?
We have known since the beginning of the 20th century through the studies of FC Bartlett that memory does not preserve our memories intact, but that it tends to actively reorganize past experiences. We are therefore powerless to preserve our memory without creating distortion.
However, this function, far from being penalizing, would on the contrary be an asset for living our future better.
Our memory, our autobiographical (episodic) memories are made up of elements whose temporality is variable, establishing each time they are called up, links between past, present and probable future scenarios.

These artworks are a dreamlike evocation of the process of recomposition of autobiographical memory, linked to the aesthetics of archaeological remains.