Delphine Richer
ORIGIN OF THE PROJECT
Insight was created shortly after the weekend of April 27-28, 2019, which was marked by at least two important events:
In France, on April 27, the Yellow Vest movement led a new action called "Act 24" which mobilized 60 132 demonstrators according to the organizers (22 600 according to the Ministry of the Interior). The next day, Sunday April 28, in Hong Kong, the Civil Front for Human Rights organized a new demonstration against the proposal of the extradition law. The march brought together 130 000 demonstrators (22,800 according to the police).
Invited in Macau for an art residency a few weeks later, Delphine Richer's travel's route lead her from one point to the other: from Paris to Hong Kong. From there, Delphine took a bus to reach the special zone of Macau where everything was very quite. The creative residency and the particular status of Macao city which constitutes an autonomous zone of the Chinese territory offered the artist an interesting context to design her work. The regulations in Macao are more flexible and the freedom of expression relatively more lenient than on the continental territory.
Delphine decided to compose a landscape of world's concerns, a portrait of international issues based on participants' slogans. In doing so, through her exhibition, the artist offers a space of expression to the voices which demanded to be heard and develops a subjective and sensitive testimony of contemporary History.
The installation, which has a strong physical presence, has several dimensions: political, social, cultural, personal and collective, poetic, intimate and/or universal...
PRINCIPLE OF THE ARTWORK
Delphine Richer wrote a call and collects slogans from her own contacts whom, in turn, spread the call in a way that extends the project from people to people.
The installation is presented in an enclosed space whose windows, obscured, do not allow visual exchange with the outside. The room has a door that visitors has to manipulate to enter. Delphine choose this configuration in order to set up an ambivalent narrative where the space becomes both a place of departure (where the slogans, ready to be use, are stored awaiting the action) and a place of retention (where slogans are stored following their confiscation).
The audience is allowed to handle the objects.
This work, initiated in Macao, evolved into a long-term project that is still active today.
This work can be exhibited on several scales: we can present only the elements of the current year or the entire long-term work presenting greater depth and complexity thanks to the elements of successive years, which are then identifiable by a color coding.
If you are interested in this project, you are warmly invited to take part by answering and spreading the artist's call for participation:
Dear friends, artists, colleagues,
Since 2019, each year I collect slogans from around the world for my art project. To take part, I warmly invite you to answer this question:
IF YOU WOULD/COULD HOLD A SIGN IN A DEMONSTRATION TODAY,
WHAT WOULD YOU WRITE ON IT?
To participate, send:
1) Your answer (slogan, diagram, drawing, photo of your sign, etc.) in your own language.
2) Its translation in English if you can (and an explanation if you think it is necessary to understand the meaning or context of your message).
3) Your nationality (and the country you are living in if different).
Send your participation by email to:
About people from sensitive countries, don't be scared: the slogans are all ANONYMOUS in the final art installation.
You can discover the origines of the project and know more about the artwork on the dedicated page: https://www.delphinericher.fr/insight-project
The concept of the call for participation is to be spread from people to people. You are warmly invited to share this message with your contacts.
Thank you for reading, for your participation and for your support.
Delphine Richer