Le Foyer

No one enters this house. It’s guarded by dissuasive brambles. Installed on quai de la Cathédrale, the trunks composing it create a dialogue with the constructions around them. Lélia Demoisy’s Le Foyer [home or hearth] is a surprising bit of forest that looks like our houses. This is a sign of our deep connection to nature because in all kinds of weather, everyone gathers around the hearth.

The hearth brings us together. It’s a place of warmth and energy, a store of memories for successive generations. We always come back to this place heavy with emotions, we owe it so much. Even though we treat it poorly, nature offers us this home, offers us wood for heat or to build with. Does clearcutting our forests make sense? Is it reasonable? With its rough trunks all lined up, Demoisy’s installation confronts us with our forest management methods. She reminds us that nature, an abundant and prodigious breeding ground as well as a safe full of well-kept secrets, will forever be closely linked with our history.

Born in 1991, visual artist Lélia Demoisy lives and works in Montainville (France). She has a degree in set design but currently focuses on visual arts, and sculpture and installations in particular. She highlights our physical relationship to matter, a fundamental given of our connection to living things, and explores the idea of merging with nature. She also works frequently with landscapers (Chaumont-sur-Loire in 2016, Lausanne jardins in 2019. In 2016 she won the Fondation Mécène & Loire’s young talent grant and the special jury prize at the Festival international des jardins du domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire.

With Adèle Hopquin & Par Ailleurs Paysages, she won the 2019  Lausanne jardins competition for Terreau incognito.