Chantier, Musee Barthete, Boussan, France
In 2019 I arrived at Musée Barthéte, a museum dedicated to the history of ceramics and contemporary art. This was my second invitation and the curators Suzanne Danis-Legé and Claude Legé gave me free reign to create new work both inside the museum and outside in the gardens. The primary project became the creation of a life size “Primitive Hut” inspired by my interest in early 17th century landscape architecture and the notion of manufactured ruins and follies. The curators were excited by the project and involved an extended community of volunteers to help me forage and build with found materials – 1000’s of branches and detritus gathered from the grounds of the museum. Further, I dipped many branches both in clay slip from the region and beeswax also from the region. This living material added to the structure and as the hut grew so did the visitation of wildlife, inhabiting the folly bringing the site to life.
I was artist in residence for approximately 8 weeks. Many thanks to all the people who helped realize my project and especially Suzanne Danis-Legé and Claude Legé and Jean-Guy Haché.
