Fatigue

In the window of No. 3 Place des Déportés, we embark on a strange rehabilitation of the ceiling. Cracks, subtle traces discovered by accident, slowly spread and question the ceiling’s inherent function as a shelter. If restoration means returning a damaged object to its initial state, facing the passage of time, Fatigue subverts these acts of care and attention. With pencils in hand, we strive to exhaust the ceiling, simulate and accelerate its deterioration. Just as decorators paint walls to resemble marble, we deceive the viewer’s eye, staging an inverted renovation, an anti-lifting. Instead of concealing the cracks, we emphasize them, playing with these signs of fragility. As the cracks emerge, reconfigured through the temporal lens of drawing, a vascular system is revealed. The veins connect and remind us that the ceiling is part of an interdependent whole: the building, made of materials exerting forces upon one another, is alive.

As a visual artist and trained as an architect, we have been collaborating for two years on projects that oscillate between performance, craftsmanship or DIY and video installations. Our work explores themes of reuse and materiality, inhabited spaces and the care devoted to them.