When lace helps save coral reefs

On the first floor of the old lace house which now houses the Caudry Museum (North), the visitor, like a fish in the water, immerses himself in the abyss. Happened by the sifted light and crossing bluish shades, he discovers the Neptune brain, A monumental installation signed Jérémy Gobé.

This plastic artist – born in Cambrai, in 1986 – has launched since 2017 since 2017 in an artistic project to raise awareness of the preservation of coral reefs. He then became interested in a typical know-how of his region, lace, and realized that the reason called point of mind was quite close to the structure of the skeleton of the coral. “It is from this intuition that the” Reticulum Maris “exhibition was born. She takes the side of cohabiting haute couture with a sustainable development project, ”explains Émilie Geloen, the mediator of the museum.

Mirror evocations

“It was a question of making contemporary art, fashion, decorative arts and craft arts dialogue, in resonance with the fate of the oceans”, adds Katell Palix, director of the museum and cocomatic of the exhibition. This is how we can see several paintings and sculptures by Jérémy Gobé, like this piece of red coral which mixes with site of construction of the same color to invade a table. The works of nine other artists – designers or stylists – evoke the seabed and their biodiversity from samples of lace and embroidery, like this fossil which seems more true than life and which is nevertheless woven by the textile sculptor Simone Pheulpin from bands of raw cotton and tangled pins.

We notice elsewhere a bicycle out of the ocean after a long stay in the water, on which have prospered many colored specimens of algae, sea herbs and shells, modeled in silicone lace by the Israeli plastic artist Tzuri Gueta. Further on, the sculptor Aude Franjou has concocted, from a complex technique of linen wire winding, a branch of bleached coral which regenerates the space of a moment thanks to colorful lighting. Well related to the title of the exhibition (“reticulum” means network of wires) and as a hope of seeing nature regain its rights in the face of global warming.

Art of pretense

Here and there, along the route, we are driven by the temptation to put on the dresses, jewelry or sequins that marry or evoke the shape of jellyfish, hippocampes, anemones or pearls. The poetry and mastery of the art of the pretense of these works go hand in hand with a constructed and coherent (sometimes technical) point contained in the videos and digital devices which explain the approach of artists.

“We don’t impose a look,” insists Katell Palix. Each visitor is invited to make associations of ideas to form their own opinion on the urgency of preserving marine ecosystems, essential to life on earth. “With this exhibition in which the beautiful serves as a alarm signal for the future of the planet, it can be said that the expression” doing in lace “has never sounded more just!

A museum of beautiful fabric

In the city center of Caudry, the museum of lace and embroidery is installed in a red brick building, typical of the industrial architecture of the 19th century, to which a contemporary canopy was added.

His permanent journey presents the rich history of the city’s know-how, from the first manual utensils to the impressive machine Leavers, a sort of profession to weave mechanical lace dating from 1838, which can be seen. And, of course, a collection of magnificent dresses, sewn from local lace, and demonstrations of know-how as they are still practiced by six Caudresian family businesses.