_06 LAST SNOW * OBJECTS
_2023
_CHAIRS
_PINE
Tribute to the refuge
Starting from an exploration of High Mountains, this project is an itinerary telling the story of this unique environment through objects. A collection emerges from my experiences on site, driven by the desire of being out of scope, far from stations and facilities.
The seats are monolithic, serene and soft, just like the refuge itself. They represent the different times experienced. The highest chair is for arriving. You sit down, put your things down, but there's a lot to do and you keep getting up. The second chair marks the moment when, thanks to the warmth of the snoring stove, conversation begins.
I'm a product of my generation, for whom the mountains have been made accessible. I discovered the high mountains through the infrastructure and the resorts. That's how I came to know it. Today I detach myself from these facilities for many reasons.
Not far from them, often a little hidden, are the refuges. These allow you to swap a timeless apartment for a bit of walking or sliding. These are huts, pieces of metal sheets or buildings that stand proudly in the altitude. They are the gateway to and from the high mountains. This element in itself, which is not yet the sky, which is no longer really the Earth, which is a snow-covered relief promised to disappear because the snow will one day melt. This territory, let's call it that way because it has been conquered, by its hesitation between the aerial and the telluric, between the immense and the fragile, is the host of excesses. In other words, its layout imposes on it each variation with an inordinate amplitude. Whether it's winds, precipitation or temperatures, the variation is all over the place. It's a den of extremes. You'll have to remember to tell the wind that the mountains won't budge.
Why is life in a refuge so enjoyable?
Because they offer us a modest peace, where objects provide man with their sufficient function. Everything serves its own purpose. Innovation has no place in this friendly world. The refuge is a parenthesis in our modern lives. In the city, we are offered everything and everything at once. Jean Cocteau: "perhaps progress is the development of a mistake". In the refuge, nothing is too much. Altitude is a school for offloading. Both physically and mentally. It's a movement that runs through our societies. We understand that to lighten up is to become free.
Taking time out in the refuge means breaking the circle of productivity. Everything that surrounds us in our daily lives is designed to keep us active. To challenge us. The objects I'm proposing reclaim those moments when we're really there for ourselves. They are a symbol of physical and mental relaxation and rest. There, life tightens up around pleasures that are proportionate to their absolute necessity.