Projet Phenix - 2021

In 2021, blindfolded, Prune Nourry used hearing and touch to sculpt busts of eight visually impaired people who have transcended their disability. During the sittings in the privacy of her studio, a real closeness developed out of these verbal and tactile conversations, as the artist's hands brushed over the facial contours she was reproducing in clay. The portraits were then moulded and fired using the traditional Japanese raku technique, in which the still red-hot sculpture is immersed in ash as soon as it emerges from the kiln. Each portrait, then, is a metaphor for rebirth, like a phoenix rising from the ashes. Please touch and listen: visitors of Projet Phenix are invited to enjoy a unique sensory experience in an exhibition space that encourages them to put themselves in someone else’s place. Just as the artist has never seen either her models or the portraits she has created, visitors discover the works plunged into darkness, groping their way through the exhibition along a rope and guided only by the voice of each subject telling his or her story.