In Silentio

What is expressed in silence? What is said, and not said, in the face of Jeanne Vicerial’s textile sculptures, powerful and enigmatic figures that come to us like proud and silent sentinels? 

The exhibition In silentio is the story of the encounter between the weaver Jeanne Vicérial and the philosopher Claire Marin. They invite us to explore the secrets and murmurs, the whispers, the unspoken internal dialogue that silence produces. 

Their unprecedented collaboration weaves together threads and words, texts and textures, in a world populated by bodies that cannot be reduced to gender, species, or any other category. Are these hybrid presences women or men, insects or humans? Are they animate or petrified, light or heavy? Do they belong to the past, or to the future? And what do they tell us about our own bodies and their transformations? 

At the heart of the exhibition, a robot comes to life to create a wall of delicate threads using Vicerial’s “tricotissage” technique so as to protect an immaculate sleeping figure. The organs within that figure have been transformed into flowers, symbolising life and fragility. The idea is to reanimate this recumbent figure, this reclining body, ready to rise again to tell us its story. In this strange laboratory, a silent army takes shape. Through pleats, threads, seams, and drapes, these recumbent figures redraw their own vision of femininity. 

A short film, Une Re.Naissance, accompanies the exhibition. Directed and designed by Louise Hernandez with Jeanne Vicerial, the film is a poetic evocation of the artist’s working process and inspirations.