Using a collection of furniture pieces and a film, Matali Crasset’s latest exhibition explores ritual practices and invites meditation.
French designer Matali Crasset is well known for exploring notions of utopia and rituals. Her Voyage to Uchronia exhibition questions these practices and searches for experimental environments.
The exhibition is made up of a series of furniture pieces, referred to as “Permanents” and is built around a film directed by Juli Susin titled “Voyage to Uchronia".
Made from felt, the “Permanents” include a chair, cabinet, portrait gallery, wooden bell and various puppets, all constructed around a unique form that envelopes the human body. The puppets are showcased through various human activities; namely standing, sitting or laying down. The pieces are staged in their simplest form and draws on colours that evoke certain responses in human behaviour. Orange areas highlight an invitation to read, sit, lie down, see and listen.
A central element to the exhibition is a film that came about due to the collaboration between Crasset and Susin. Set in a forest where the mystical mathematician Pythagoras once lived and died, a tribe carries out imaginary rituals. Against a backdrop of water, air and sun, Uchronia’s universe unfolds out of a collision of figures and colours.
Voyage to Uchronia is presented at the Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris until 20 July 2013.
