Rue Monrose, 62 : La chambre L’enfant Le train

Paul Gérard’s artistic practice tends toward a politicization of the intimate realm. Drawing on a series of testimonies and memories that are both autobiographical and deeply personal, the artist reveals the political impact on life stories. Halfway between reality and fiction, he draws inspiration from family narratives, which he deconstructs, transforms and sublimates.

After exploring grief, unsaid things and transgenerational legacies, Paul Gérard now turns toward childhood. He develops a narrative composed of sounds and images that questions how to put things into words differently. What precedes or exceeds language? Rue Monrose, 62: La chambre L’enfant Le train is inspired by his first place of residence. From an installation linked to the world of play, the artist explores the relationship between childhood and violence, and the ways children channel the images they receive: distance is created through play and the construction of an imaginary world. Using old toys once stored in a closet on rue Monrose (Kapla blocks, a train set, cars, figurines), he stages a miniature city crossed by a model train. The immersive, visual and sound installation invites visitors to enter the bedroom, a place of refuge, and to “board the moving train.” The model city, along with a soundtrack, resonates with emotions: to desolation responds a vital energy; destruction gives way to a hope of reconstruction. The bedroom, an isolated space, crystallizes the tension between refuge and confinement. Immersion offers both a return to childhood and a distancing through fiction.

Installation with sound piece (voice: Estelle Saignes)