DSAA InSituLab (Le Corbusier Illkirch-Graffenstaden)

Re-Registres turns to the tissuthèque collection housed at the Villa Burrus, in Sainte-Croix-aux-Mines, approaching it as a register of patterns that enter into dialogue with landscapes. Among the thousands of fabric samples produced between 1790 and 1939 — that is, before the Second World War and before the advent of colour photography — six patterns were selected.

Each of these textile fragments, just a few square centimetres in size, is digitised and then transformed through extension using various digital tools. From this transformation emerges a version printed onto textile at a format of 140 × 200 cm. A structure is then specifically designed to install this textile within a landscape: the patterns thus enter into dialogue with their surroundings, at times seeking to blend in, at other times creating contrast. The installation is finally photographed, this image forming the last step of the process.

Through this approach, the fabric samples are set into play within space, in relation to a landscape, exploring forms of camouflage, visual continuity and rupture. Each pattern tells a small story: a weaving loom recalling the distribution of thread through the valley, a woman in an apron gazing at a stretch of water, a washing scene by the riverbank, a walk across a bridge. Pictorial echoes surface along the way — a swing in the manner of Fragonard, a bridge as in Monet, a field in the spirit of Sérusier.

Re-Registres thus reveals how a discreet textile heritage can become the starting point for a sensitive exploration of landscape and the memory of place.