La constellation du navire Argo

For Art au Centre, Sarah Illouz and Marius Escande present a new version of their installation : La constellation du navire Argo, navigating between traditional and contemporary mythologies. It stems from a reflection on Robert Graves’ book The Golden Fleece, which confronts various accounts of the ancient myth of Jason and the Argonauts.

According to the authors recounting the legend of the Golden Fleece, it possesses a gleam of gold or purple, serving as a symbol of immortality enveloping its possessor in a vibrant radiance. On these purple curtains, a constellation made of food represents the ship of the Argonauts. These food items echo the cornucopia, a legendary object shaped like a ruminant’s horn, or a triton shell used by Pluto, the Greek god of wealth and abundance. It is often depicted brimming with fruits, as well as milk, honey and other sweet foods. It symbolizes an inexhaustible source of blessings.

Here, the plastic food items have been chewed by two generations, and the textile comes from Nona source, a company dedicated to revaluing dormant stocks. Abundance is a myth, “as an imaginary resource and a source of understanding our inconsistency and madness, and as a tool available to every human community, battered by globalization, to reinvent itself[1].”

As a duo, the artists design installations, devices, ways of living, connecting, and thinking together, ways of dwelling and learning with others and locally. They explore ancestral techniques, their evolutions and their histories.