Jonathan Paquet

À l’heure de la sieste - Installation - 2019

presented as part of the exhibition Panorama 21

Installation


Sandwiched between the sea and vine-clad hills, Collioure is one of those towns where light seems particularly at home. People live in keeping with the rhythm of light. It conjures up the light of time. The latter slows down at certain times of the day, particularly after lunch. A unique time, which can be sensed in the activities taking place all around, which are themselves slowed down. Reading, rest, contemplation: everyone chooses their own way of being. This is the moment commonly called the siesta, which is evoked in the installation.

À l’heure de la sieste invites viewers to enter a space where they can lie down in front of a video projection. They see part of an interior, including a window opening onto the world. Through headphones they hear sounds that are an invitation to escape. There’s also a virtual reality headset for exploring the interior in full. The way you move through space using your gaze influences the presence of a figure and the gestures it makes. Through light, the latter’s movement reveals a representation of space and consequently volumes and colours.

This scene echoes artist Henri Matisse’s work focused on his windows during the summers he spent at Collioure.

Jonathan Paquet


Born in 1986, in Poitiers (86). After receiving technical (BTS Audiovisuel) and then artistic training (Beaux-Arts de Tourcoing), Jonathan Paquet started combining light and colour, which are inseparable from each other. He also explores the space of the image and the concepts of the real and the virtual. His inter-disciplinary approach opens up avenues of experimentation, enabling him to rethink the modern image by drawing on the past. These experiences have naturally led him to create bridges between painting, photography and cinema through digital and new technologies.

Production


Le Fresnoy - Studio national des arts contemporains, Tourcoing

Partners

Musée Matisse - Le Cateau-Cambrésis — Musée d’art moderne de Collioure — La maison du Fauvisme - Collioure — Nextsound Lab

Credits


› Collaboration : Joséphine Matamoros

Acknowledgments


Les équipes du Fresnoy – Studio national, François Bonenfant, Pascal Buteaux, Pascale Pronnier, Madeleine Van Doren, Daniel Dobbels, Charles-Edouard Mounguende, Arthur Thébault, Thomas Wierzbinski, Jean-Claude Demeure, Claire Muchir, Caroline Barrère, Fréderic Prieur, Marin Paran, Françoise Cottet et Emilie Dhuin.