Jour de fête

Among the many effects of global warming, fragile boats are now filling with those excluded from the party and who are looking for a place to welcome their hopes. In art, the motif of the wandering boat is recurring. We find it in numerous paintings, such as The Ship of Fools by J. Bosch or Delacroix’s Inferno representing Dante and Virgil, but also closer to us, with Road to Exile by the Franco-Cameroonian Barthélemy Togo.

Mireille Fulpius and Sylvie Bourcy make these tossed, stranded or turned against the rocks boats, the ghosts of the boats once sailing on the Thiou and play on the ambiguity of the poetic image denouncing both a deadly economic system and the incredible risk taken by migrants to survive as much as they open the doors to the imagination. Because as Bachelard tells us, “no utility can legitimize the immense risk of setting out on the waves. We need powerful interests which are those we dream of and not those we calculate.”

Franco-Swiss visual artist, Mireille Fulpius (born in 1951) learned early to consider nature. Perhaps it is there, in this insatiable curiosity about life, that we find the starting point for what will become his essential activity: sculpture. A free explorer, she alternates materials – metal, wood and paper – as well as techniques, occupying space inside/outside through the creation of sculptures, installations and stampings. Everything interests her, everything seems possible. In 1990, she set up her workshop in an industrial wasteland whose dimensions would considerably modify her spatial landmarks. It was also for her a period of rediscovery of wood which would mark a decisive turning point in her artistic practice. Large pieces executed quickly with a chainsaw come out of his wood workshop and a number of plant prints rubbed with ink on canvas or paper come out of her drawing workshop.

Sylvie Bourcy (born in 1956) studied history at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne then worked in Tignes (Savoie) as a press officer. She was led to implement the project of a monumental fresco on the Tignes hydroelectric dam (Savoie) proposed by the painter Jean Marie Pierret, which will decide to change her professional environment. After training in cultural engineering at ARSEC Lyon, she will carry out various missions as coordinator and curator of exhibitions.