A nos épaves, 2023
As part of the (re)connecting.earth, Beyond Water biennial, Anne-Laure Franchette explores the question of waste. This artistic proposal is as much about the industrial history of materials that are difficult to dispose of, such as plastics, as it is about current explorations into the development of new materials capable of integrating and/or disintegrating harmoniously in different environments.
The series “A nos épaves” takes as its starting point the plastic waste from Lake Leman that has washed up in the Pro Natura nature reserve at the Pointe à la Bise site. It was the occasion for a collaboration with Manon Briod, exploring ideas of digestion through banners of bacterial polymers and organic waste (bioplastics, food pigments, sand and algae) and Géraldine Honauer, exploring recycling in relation to ideas of “abstract” waste (visualised as poster).
As a central element of the project, the reader provides an opportunity to share questions, thoughts and references that have emerged within the practice of Anne-Laure Franchette during the development of the series, in relation to the context of the biennial and of the nature reserve. It compiles photo documentation of the plastic waste collected on site, a waste lexicon, bioplastics samples, research and press articles which allow me to open up themes of conservation, production, value and materiality, examined through the perspective of plastic and its alternatives.
You can find the poster all over Geneva. You can find the installations and reader at the natural reserve of La Pointe à la Bise every Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays from 10am to 6pm at: chemin de la Réserve 8, 1222 Vésenaz, Geneva, Switzerland. The outdoor bioplastic banner will fade and might eventually decompose.
