For our 10th edition, we continue our tradition of inviting an artist to reimagine the layout of the café space without conventional partitions. This year, we have entrusted this project to Delphine Dénéréaz, a contemporary French artist born in 1989 and a graduate of La Cambre in Brussels, class of 2013.
Delphine Dénéréaz draws from her recent exhibition Bienvenue à Delfunland, presented at the Collection Lambert in 2023. The architectural structures of this imaginary city will intertwine with the flowered and deconstructed chapel of Un lieu à soi, reinventing a “village square” at the very heart of the fair. From the fountain to the hotel, each element seems to resonate, inviting visitors to gather and interact.To breathe life into these elements, Delphine Dénéréaz resurrects forgotten textiles that were destined for abandonment, reflecting her concern for environmental issues. She revisits the artisanal technique of the “lirette rug” (“tapis de lirette”), modernizing it with a contemporary sensibility to explore concepts of identity and belonging.
"I have always been interested in testimonies, whether through material or motifs, but those with no value other than sentimental – charms, talismans, comfort objects. Rugs have always conveyed through their patterns the daily life stories of those who weave them. By repurposing domestic objects, beyond what I see as an essential responsible approach today, I attribute value to what appears to have none: poor materials destined for the bin, trivial everyday textiles that carry the weight of our most intimate emotions. I play with the encounter between a traditional technique and contemporary symbols, bearing witness to a generation. The result is pieces inspired by my daily life, our society steeped in images, saturated with collective symbols, which everyone appropriates in the quest for their own identity through integration into the group, bolstered by logos, signs, and symbols."
– Delphine Dénéréaz
Through her work, Delphine Dénérez weaves immersive, dreamlike environments in vibrant hues, where art history and ancestral cultures merge with contemporary signs and artifacts. Her universe overflows with a plethora of ornamental patterns, blending personal references with collective symbols drawn from urban landscapes and digital culture. Delphine Dénéréaz delves into the storytelling aspect of weaving, using this craft to stitch together personal and collective narratives. She also shares her expertise through group workshops. Her works, embellished with symbols, emojis and brand logos – with which she regularly collaborates – examine the overflow of images in our visual culture, reflecting the paradoxes in our current ways of representing and modes of communication.
www.delphinedenereaz.com
