Unwanted Knowledge – Excerpt from the application submitted to the French Academy in Rome – Villa Medicis 2024
The Unwanted Knowledge project delves into the exploration of emotions, wounds, neuroses, obsessions, personality disorders, and the defense mechanisms we develop daily in response to childhood traumas, and how these influence our psychic and emotional dynamics. It’s a journey into the world of psychology and memory, analyzing the imprints of the past and buried feelings. My work revolves around a conceptual and artistic exploration made up of installations, accumulations, and mixed media techniques, including painting, collage, photography, transformed objects, books, and documents.
I also use time itself as a medium to assign new value to objects I work with. My approach mainly involves altering certain materials and items by deliberately erasing or covering written traces or images, with the aim of exorcising the scars of the past and intercepting mental automatisms. My research touches on the notions of repression and denial, offering a way to heal old wounds that persist in reopening, and perhaps helping to better understand one’s own past and that of others. Unwanted Knowledge is also a form of resistance, a refusal to accept the current or past state of things, offering a new vision for the wounded mind.
Methodology
1 – Erasing to Rebuild
At the heart of Unwanted Knowledge lies the act of erasing. Written pages are transformed, crossed out, drowned in black ink, and images are reworked, covered, or altered, creating a blank canvas for new narratives. This method symbolizes art’s ability to reinvent history and offer fresh perspectives on the past.
2 – The Art of Transformation
The project explores various techniques to alter materials, such as using paper, fabric, nails, wire, and covering with collage, paint, or other mediums. Each transformation is meticulously crafted to bring new forms of visual and conceptual expression to life.
3 – The Rejection of Information
A crucial aspect of the idea is the exploration of the refusal of information in our personal and collective experience. In an age of information overload, fake news, and manipulation, I aim to evoke notions of censorship, disinformation, and the control of knowledge. By crossing out entire pages, sealing books with nails, or covering images and screens, I question our relationship with knowledge.
Sensitive subject
Unwanted Knowledge seeks to address sensitive subjects such as taboos, censorship, disinformation, memory, and forgetfulness. By exploring these themes, my work aims to spark meaningful discussions about manipulation, media responsibility, and the fragility of human memory.
Research Focus
Personal Psychoanalytic Synthesis
Harmonizing the exploration of my own emotions and psychological issues with the teachings of the great masters of psychoanalysis and philosophy. Deepening self-understanding by integrating personal experiences within a theoretical context.
Childhood Defense Mechanisms
Exploring in depth how childhood traumas influence the creation of psychological defense mechanisms. Analyzing how these mechanisms affect psychic and emotional dynamics in adulthood.
Repressed Emotions
Examining repressed or expressed emotions such as fear, jealousy, shame, or guilt, and how they manifest in artistic work. Unveiling the release of these emotions through visual art to encourage dialogue on taboo subjects.
Time as a Medium
Exploring the use of all available artistic techniques to evoke, accelerate, or intensify the passage of time. Analyzing how temporal transformation can exorcise past scars and interact with mental automatisms.
The Rejection of Information
Studying the concept of rejecting information in personal life as well as in a context of information overload and disinformation. Exploring how art can serve as a tool to question our relationship with discovery and knowledge.
Artistic Approach
Installations
Designing installations that embody childhood defense mechanisms and emotions, whether repressed or expressed over time, into adulthood.
Mixed Media Techniques
Using all available techniques, including painting, collage, photography, video, and object transformation, to bring to life the evocation of psychological disorders and felt emotions.
Deliberate Alteration
Erasing, crossing out, and intentionally covering materials or objects to symbolize the process of emotional release and the writing or rewriting of history.
