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Penelope Stewart is an artist, curator/writer and publisher whose multi-disciplinary practice encompasses expansive architectural installations/interventions, alternative photography, artist books, and works on paper. Re-current themes address notions of cultural memory, of time and space and a considered approach to the relationship between objects, architecture, gardens, landscape and the places between – places to intervene, inhabit and above all activate. Whether it has been historic sites such as Musée Barthète, a small museum in France, or a museum like the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY or the deconstruction/reconstruction of a 19 th century book of botany using cyanotype, her intentions are to create sensory spaces, haptic experiences, transforming our perceptions and possible readings of space, time and memory.

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Parois, 2007, beeswax tiles (4000), room size 13ft l x10ft w x10fth

parois, 2007  which is a permanent installation at the Musée Barthète, Boussan, France, a museum dedicated to the collection of historical tiles and contemporary art. While in residence at the museum, I had access to the large tile collection, and was able to visit the many medieval towns and farms close by.  As well I was able to make several trips to the 10,000 year old Magdalenian Caves situated in the mountain ranges of the Pyrenées close to the museum.  It is from these experiences that I was inspired to create a series of high relief tiles that resembled both the floral motifs repeated in the local 15th century tile collection and the stalagmites on the rock face in the caves.  Beekeeping too is a big part of life in this part of France and fostered the use of beeswax as an architectural building material and so over 4000 tiles were cast from beeswax and a room at the museum was tiled from floor to ceiling. My intention was to create a sensory architecture triggering memories of place, real and imagined, and history both collective and individual. Sight, smell and touch all become agents of the skin and cast parois as an emotionally charged architectural envelope.

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