Attempting the Embrace n° 24
video 02 : 58 2015shot in a lavafield, Reykjanes Peninsula, Iceland
"Claire Paugam’s artistic rituals titled “Attempting the Embrace” perform the mattering of stones into flesh, and flesh into stones (Paugam 2014-2017). They are the rituals of transformation through a visual analogy that bring bodies into an encounter of their mutual transformation. Each episode of this attempt whispers the sound of wind, only to be interrupted by the sound of breaking flesh on the stones of the earth. […] Without any ressentiment or romanticization, she performs the ritual of mattering, of movement and relation searching for the elements, for transformation. Her work captures earth, dirt’s transversal wondering. These are as affects as encounters through which bodies are generated and transformed. By means of representation, she changes signification into significance, and like a Stengers’ witch, she mutates and brings bodies into movement, into mattering."
Extract from the article Forgotten Rituals of Yearning by Agnieszka Anna Wołodźko
Capacious Journal #1 2017 http://capaciousjournal.com