Férielle Doulain – Zouari
Current Water

March 2019 I June 2020
La Boîte Hors les Murs

Sometimes, as a Mediterranean, I seem to discover the source of my nostalgia for the countries of the north in the absence of the sea: the sea as freedom, youth, the possibility of adventure.
Excerpt from The Art of Joy, Goliarda Sapienza.

The opportunity to work in the chapel of the IHEC, as a continuation of my research, led me to propose an installation conceived in relation to the architecture of the place and its geographical position (on the coast).

In a holy and timeless place, I wanted to install a wave of plastic against the current of the sea. A wave that comes from another imaginary world, one that is excessive and contemporary. The installation can be read as a metaphor for the struggle between industrial profusion and the generosity of the natural element described by Sapienza in the previous extract.
To create this wave, the idea is to set up an ephemeral workshop a month before the start of the exhibition, located on the balcony of the chapel. This workshop will allow me to work on the weaving in situ, but not only that: it will also allow me to legitimise the presence of the work in the space, by immersing it in the everyday life of the campus one month before the exhibition opens. Students and other campus regulars will be able to talk about the installation. The experience is on a human scale and will ideally allow more intimate memories of this work to be kept, such as exchanges, first names and encounters. The workshop will be left as it is to be visited, including during the exhibition, and certain manipulations may be added depending on the experience.

In my recent work, I’ve been using throat tubes in different shapes and colours, which I’ve transferred to the field of art, in particular through the weaving technique. This is the material I’ll be using – mainly – to make the large-format weavings. It refers to the increasingly invasive and destructive plastic industry, and seems to me to contain a strong potential: that of speaking easily to one and all. Its presence in large numbers means that visitors will be able to experience common emotions such as the fascination and anxiety inherent in serial production. We’ll also be reminded of common, current and major human concerns, such as industrial pollution.
Through these manual manipulations, the transformation and reassembly of these materials will constitute a process of recycling. “Recycling” not because it has already been used, but because we are giving a new function to an object that has already been processed and marketed.

Férielle Doulain Zouari, 2019

Sur Current Water by Férielle Zouari

Here is something akin to a wave, with its eddies, in an arrangement that defies the frontal habits of the gaze. Current Water makes us look up at the balustrade of the chapel, which removes the entire composition by sucking it down from above, trapping a few rays of light in its unfolding. Now that the artist has carved out a livable corner for herself, for the duration of a residency, it is as if the unfolded body of the wave has been brought back to its Valéryan expression, “that fortune delivers to the fury of the coast, and to the dead-end dispute between the wave and the shore”. Rather than an accommodation between the architecture of the site and its geographical position overlooking the coastline, Férielle Zouari conceived of this installation as both a metaphorical and visual counterpoint, working “against the current of the sea”.
Yet Current Water does not interpose any reading protocol between the installation and its site, but invites us to combine two times: the time of immersion in the space of the work and the time when it is possible to retrace the thread of the process. Sensitive to this double temporality, the artist brings two twin strings to bear: that of the gesture in its very poetics, and that of the place that hosted its genesis by opening it up to the contingencies of studio work. The idea,” explains Férielle Zouari, “is to set up an ephemeral workshop a month before the exhibition opens. And the spectator’s place here is that of a workshop “visitor”. The word “visit” already says a lot: because visits are undoubtedly about discovering, but also about rediscovering. But sometimes, by stepping sideways, they hold a few surprises in store for us behind the scenes. There, the visitor is like a guest who, once on the floor, puts down his bag and holds a factory of the senses under his gaze.
This factory, free and thoughtful, is unfamiliar. Current Water’s inventory of materials is reminiscent of the wild poetry of hardware store catalogues. On the work table, we find a little bit of everything, in a slightly organised chaos. The young artist, who is particularly fond of the plastic range of materials, reserves her affection for the blue Kravel throat tube. She explains this choice as a “reference to the plastic industry, which is increasingly invasive and destructive”, as well as by the familiarity of its uses and its “strong potential: to speak easily to one and all”. With scissors in hand, Férielle Zouari plays with this material, ready to cut it into series, to mix forms and properties to subject them to something like recycling. But she doesn’t put a magnifying glass between her installation and the viewer. She stretches and lays her nets, measures and tests the arrangements, just as she retouches, erases or revamps her sketches. She rarely makes exceptions to this rule. Férielle Zouari’s gesture is metonymic in nature, refusing to allow herself to be taken for granted.
For it is possible, when faced with Current Water, to give in to the demon of analogy. The artist clearly shares with crocheters a taste for supple manipulation, and with embroiderers the skill of the colour reflex. Certainly, by crossing warp and weft, the precision of gestures is combined here with patience in the exercise. Férielle Zouari prefers curtains to carpets, and spontaneous arrangements of form to structural choices. She likes large-format weaving, and assemblies that place the stitches as far apart as possible. But while she seeks to establish a logic between the material and its treatment, the wave that takes shape under her fingers is, on the contrary, somewhat disconnected. This is a way of spinning the ecological metaphor of a “battle between industrial profusion and the generosity of the natural element”. It’s also a way of converting a use value into an exhibition value.

For those who allow themselves to be carried away by Current Water, there remains another way of contextualising this approach, woven together by a number of fortuitous twists and turns. A component of this in situ work, but one that extends to the dimensions of a variegated geography, the narration of the imaginary that irrigates the work confirms the artist’s penchant for encounters and his weakness for deviating trajectories. It takes the form of a soundtrack, a kind of personal chronicle. So listen carefully. Férielle Zouari builds bridges between her immersions in the souks and the improbable exchanges she has been able to capture in thrift shops around the world. She adds music and captures atmospheres, sometimes snatches of conversation, sometimes echoes of waves, as if to unravel the tight knit of work and days. It is perhaps this that, like the wave that carries Current Water, overflows its form and nuances it ad infinitum.

Adnen Jdey, 2019

> Biographie