Into the woods

“Into the woods” was imagined after a meeting between the designer Matali Crasset, the film director Benjamin Crotty and the ceramic artist Ehren Tool within a specific framework of the Vent des Forêts, a rural art centre in the Meuse managed by Pascal Yonet.

Since 2009, Matali Crasset has been involved in the Vent des Forêts adventure. For this atypical rural art centre where the forest itself is the museum, she designed some cabins in wood. With this new project, the designer is presenting a series of objects in wood, small furniture, quilts and sculptures. It’s a set of items in sycamore maple, plates and bowls, made alongside the wood-turner Philippe Huet. Echoing these wooden objects, matali designed two quilts and a sunbonnet made using a local lady weaver, a group of Carmelite nuns and a patchwork association. Lastly, the designer imagined sculptures which break-down the principle of cabin-homes like a kinetic game or sculpture.

The Vent de Forêts also welcomed a film shoot by the American film director Benjamin Crotty who placed these architectural wonders of Matali Crasset into a fictitious world. His film Fort Buchanan, shot in seasonal blocks, is a tragicomedy which takes place within a military setting and uses many of Crasset’s already-built architectural structures. The cabins were used for the accommodations of the soldiers’ wives and husbands, whereas her Dar Hi Hotel in Tunisia was transformed into a Djiboutian military camp… The transpositions and transformations in the film are more than just architectural; they are also aesthetic, geographical, linguistic and sexual. Lastly, the film combines the linguistic conformity of television series and the visual poetry associated with auteur films. Benjamin Crotty presents a new work based on the rushes made during the Spring shoot for the film.

Ehren Tool is a former American soldier who fought in the Gulf War and whose life is presently focused on ceramics. Since 2001, he’s been creating cups – and only cups – at a factory-level speed. He uses this commonplace object, strongly anchored in American culture, to ascertain his discipline. He has people become players of his art, requesting them to send photos of their family members, thus making his cups objects of dissemination and memory to preach his message for peace. Ehren Tool has produced and sold around fifteen thousand cups since 2001.

until 23 October 2015
Into the woods
Granville Gallery
23, rue du Départ, Paris