2023 / Je me souviens

“I remember”
Sculpture, Domaine national de Saint-Cloud, France
Stone lettering, galvanized steel structure, dimensions 650x120x35cm
Public commission, with the participation of the Ministry of Culture and the Centre des monuments nationaux for the program “Mondes Nouveaux”.

As part of the artistic program of the Ministry of Culture Mondes nouveaux, Je me souviens (I remember), a work by Laurent Pernot, is presented at the Domaine national de Saint-Cloud (92) from March 6 to September 30, 2023.

Imagined for the Domaine National de Saint-Cloud, Je me souviens is a sculpture of letters in natural stone, a material whose temporality is similar to that of the surrounding nature of the park and the old castle of the estate. Laurent Pernot proposes here, through the use of words, a thought experiment on our relationship to time and memory. Several interpretations of the work are possible. It can evoke the submergence into oblivion of the past of the former princely residence, which was once reflected in the water mirror of the basin, or it can prefigure what will happen to humans in the future.

As part of the Mondes Nouveaux program, Laurent Pernot proposed “to create a series of site-specific interventions, experimenting with connections between the physical experience of art and the experience of nature.” Je me souviens is the second part of this project, after “L’éternité devant soi“, also in natural stone, on the archaeological site of Glanum (Bouches-du-Rhône).

“The health crisis has created distance and isolation, shaped new uncertainties and reduced our interactions with the environment, all generations and social classes mixed. In the continuity of recent projects dedicated to writing and poetry, I propose to invoke language through the presence of words physically installed in space, words conceived as in-situ sculptures, words in nature, in architecture, words that resonate with places, words that provoke experiences of reflection, taking into account the twists and turns of history where the environment becomes the setting for thought.”