Réunion sur cellulose

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« Why get attached to paper?

Why get attached to these fragments of life?

We keep them, we treasure them like relics, we store them.

We create boxes, we number them, we date them, we accumulate them without ever opening them again.

Paper, this medium whose disappearance has been announced so many times. Paper, this medium that has been criticised and decried for decades, but which finally remains and crosses the ages.

A loved one who leaves us, a smell that fades, a sound that dims, a face that blurs, a first name that is forgotten, a landscape that disappears; so we hold on to pieces of paper, ultimate landmarks, as if to refuse forgetfulness. Physical witnesses for some, reassuring memories for others, we hold on to these pieces of the past as if to prevent time from slipping away.

Echoes of interiors or exteriors, these fragments of time take us into the comfort of a domestic scene. Paper is a house that we create for ourselves, that we decorate to surround ourselves; everyday objects providing familiar and reassuring anchor points. But fragmented, they never show themselves in their entirety: a memory of a trip, pieces of landscapes, urban or natural, which allow for escape when it is no longer possible, but which also seem likely to disappear at any moment.

Cloudy or transparent, these fragments of memory veil and unveil themselves like childhood memories. And then, these memories, which we thought were intimate and personal, suddenly appear to be alienated. Reappropriated, they no longer belong to us, like a photo album whose protagonists' names have been forgotten. Faces, presences, playful appearances, creations of dreamlike universes sometimes, remain as if to overcome solitude and the passing of time.

GALERIE CHLOE SALGADO has brought together its artists, its family, witnesses of a generation which, separated for too long, has been longing to meet and reunite again; and invites them to work on paper, as if to break the digital, too long a vector of all links, and to create tangible artefacts in order to counteract forgetting.

Like our ties that have been broken and mended, bonded and unbonded, paper tears but glues itself back together; it embellishes, supports and protects. A product of cellulose and infinitely reusable, it allows each of us to create a witness of our time.  »

Margaux Salgado