An homage to Marcel Proust
22 × 17 cm
Strips of metro ticket are woven together in a vibrant interlacing of pinks, purples and yellows, their printed text and logos remaining legible throughout. The work embodies Proust's vision of the novel as a woven structure, each thread of space and time interlaced into a single, unified fabric.
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22 × 17 cm
Strips of metro ticket are woven together in a vibrant interlacing of greens, oranges, purples and yellows, their printed text and logos remaining legible throughout. The work embodies Proust's vision of the novel as a woven structure, each thread of space and time interlaced into a single, unified fabric.
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22 × 17 cm
Strips of metro ticket are woven together in a vibrant interlacing of oranges, purples and pinks, their printed text and logos remaining legible throughout. The work embodies Proust's vision of the novel as a woven structure, each thread of space and time interlaced into a single, unified fabric.
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Ann Robsinson
I have always been amazed by the poetic power of Marcel Proust’s writing, by his almost supernatural ability to translate our most subtle impressions and bring them to life. To read and love In Search of Lost Time is to become a "reader of oneself," guided on one’s own journey by the richness of his thought and the sharpness of his gaze.
In June 2021, I had the opportunity to handle two of Proust’s handwritten notebooks at the BNF. This experience determined the form my project would take. I saw in his manuscripts a real work-in-progress; notebooks bursting with folded and glued sheets of paper that his governess, Céleste Albaret, called "paperoles." I was struck by the parallels between his practice and my own, as my work also consists of an almost infinite accumulation of scraps, fragments, and successive layers. I enjoyed imagining Proust’s room strewn with notes on loose sheets, comparing it to my own studio, littered with Paris metro tickets, whole or cut, torn, scratched, and folded.
22 × 17 cm
Tickets arranged in horizontal strips build a Proustian geography of Paris, their printed place names — Concorde, Champs-Élysées, St-Germain, Père Lachaise — tracing the neighbourhoods the author frequented. The linearity of the composition evokes the uninterrupted thread of lived time, each ticket a material fragment of space and memory.
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22 × 17 cm
Tickets dyed in deep reds are arranged in vertical and horizontal rhythms across the surface of a school workbook, evoking the textile structure of Proust's writing. The printed text of the tickets remains legible throughout, weaving a Proustian geography of space and time into the fabric of the work.
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The Paris metro ticket is my raw material, a modern fragment of space and time. It allows me to transpose experiences of the physical world into the order of art by superimposing three shifting motifs: space, materialised by fragments of tickets with recognisable Parisian inscriptions; time, reflecting the linearity of a lived life and the uninterrupted thread of writing; and the work itself, represented by a circularity that evokes the "eternal return" of spiritual aspirations. In this series, I use it to create a "Proustian geography" of the neighbourhoods the author frequented, juxtaposing the linearity of lived life with the circularity of the work of art.
To convey the multi-faceted nature of Proust’s literary work, I reconstructed his notebooks in my own way using the format of a school workbook. I sought to recreate that sense of gestation; a work growing from within through the successive incorporation of disparate elements, by layering numerous pages and "swelling" the books with folded fragments. On the covers, I arranged metro tickets in rhythmic compositions.
Two panels - 22 × 17 cm
A diptych of two school workbooks whose covers are composed of metro ticket fragments, each tracing a Proustian geography of Paris through printed place names, dates, and times. The first arranges tickets in a ordered linear rhythm; the second allows them to scatter freely, juxtaposing the linearity of lived time with the circularity of the work of art — exploring the reciprocal relationship between a life and its creation.
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Two panels - 22 × 17 cm
A diptych of two school workbooks, each tracing a Proustian geography of Paris through printed place names, dates, and times. As in the first, one cover arranges tickets in an ordered linear rhythm while the other allows them to scatter freely, the magnetic strips forming sweeping curves across the surface. Together the two panels explore the reciprocal relationship between a life and its creation, juxtaposing the linearity of lived time with the circularity of the work of art.
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22 × 17 cm
Tickets dyed in deep greens are arranged in vertical and horizontal rhythms across the surface of a school workbook, evoking the textile structure of Proust's writing. The printed text of the tickets remains legible throughout, weaving a Proustian geography of space and time into the fabric of the work.
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22 × 17 cm
Coloured triangular fragments radiate outward from a circular composition, their dynamic arrangement evoking the kaleidoscopic organisation of Proust's work. Dates and times remain legible within the fragments, tracing a Proustian geography in which the linearity of lived time meets the circularity of the work of art.
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22 × 17 cm
Coloured threads radiate outward from a circular composition of ticket fragments, their graphic logos, dates and times remaining legible throughout. The threads introduce a tactile dimension, evoking Proust's vision of the novel as a woven structure in which the linearity of lived time meets the circularity of the work of art.
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Ultimately, this series is an exploration of "involuntary memory." By cutting, colouring, and rearranging the magnetic strips and logos of the RATP tickets, I aim to translate the kaleidoscopic organisation of La Recherche into a material form. Like Proust’s spinning wheel of chronological time, these collages represent the unpredictable resurgence of past impressions; the source of all creative desire.