On the edge of what Charles Galtier calls ambiguous lands—those damp areas where willow grows—you have to wait for the cold weather to harvest and sort the crop. You have to wait until the cold has numbed the bodies and the fields. Then the sap descends and the blade cuts the stems one by one. Sorting is a humble task that is done standing up, repeated until exhaustion, until the last little twig is gone. It is a transformation, almost invisible, barely audible, that turns a plant into a material. It's part of the job, they say. It's work before work, but I know that even as they sort, they are already weaving in their minds. I know that in winter, we weave in our dreams. In the end, the strands come together and stand upright. The wicker sorted here is the sum of a year-long harvest, weeded by hand, on a small plot of land by a stream in Cucuron. On April 3, the public was invited to watch the work of basket maker Gabriel Thiney, which remains on display for the duration of the exhibition.
Clara Denidet
Clara Denidet is an artist and author. Her itinerant work, inspired by encounters in the field, explores our ways of living through collective practices that combine knowledge, gestures, and attention to care.
Gabriel Thiney
A basket maker and wicker grower between Luberon and Morvan, he has been cultivating wicker for 10 years, developing a basketry of simple gestures, between utilitarian forms and research.