The Features of pollen

Polyptych of thirty suspended sculptures in grogged sandstone (20-60 cm) with interactive visual and sound projections

The diversity of plants was there, long before us. Born out of improbable encounters, mysterious adventures and unknown contributions, it is blown by the wind throughout the Earth. They are all transported from the anther to the stigma ensuring the continuity of the living.

[Concept Ceramics] Nadia de Bernardi and Béatrice Albert
[Sound composition] Vincent Hulot
[Scenography] Ikse Maître
[Digital development] Tim Schneider
[Mediation] Bruno Freyssinet

Magnified, kneaded, sculpted, heated, thirty ceramic pollen grains are suspended in equilibrium in the air. They subsume the structural and functional richness still present in nature. Experienced in a soundscape, while the air is blowing and the images they capture are being projected, they let us grasp a simple or complex beauty that is intended for the production of the living. Thus, it is with their heads in the air that curious passers-by discover these grains, raw and structured in the daylight, textured and enriched at night time. Every grain of pollen tells a story. One self, ours.

 

The Features of pollen is a creation des Vues de l’esprit; an opening of Le  sas, science-art-society group, and La Transplanisphère; a production by La métonymie, in collaboration with ESE and BioMaps, in partnership with CNRS and Université Paris-Saclay and the support of IDEEV, Faculty of sciences, La Diagonale Paris-Saclay, and Fondation Carasso. 

Scenography

They are thirty suspended and informed in a first intention towards the public. With a double suspension system, they can be hanged high up on structures indoors or on trees outdoors. Outdoors or indoors, they invite to a walk with the head up in the air. This choice of exhibition places the visitors in a slight imbalance, in an unusual dynamic that echoes the imbalances that anthropocene, human induced in nature.

First experimentations for the Fête de la nature : Pollens hanged on cedars and sound projections