Translatio. Sur les traces de Vincennes, 2020. Stone, variable dimensions. Curated by Horthense Soichet . Exhibition « Images des mondes urbains» . Paris 8. Paris, FR © Nerea Gil — Photo: Horthense Soichet.
At the center of the exhibition space rests a block of raw stone, whose silent presence concentrates the stakes of the work. This fragment comes from the former site of Université Paris 8 Vincennes–Saint-Denis, destroyed several decades ago, and was moved to the current university campus. The work does not transform the material; it shifts its context. This simple gesture — transporting a stone from a disappeared place to its inheriting instituion — acts as a symbolic act. The stone then becomes a clue, a material trace that reactivates a fragmentary memory. More than an object, it embodies a pas- sage, a survival, a fragile link between an erased past and a present that receives it.
At the center of the exhibition space rests a block of raw stone, whose silent presence concentrates the stakes of the work. This fragment comes from the former site of Université Paris 8 Vincennes–Saint-Denis, destroyed several decades ago, and was moved to the current university campus. The work does not transform the material; it shifts its context. This simple gesture — transporting a stone from a disappeared place to its inheriting instituion — acts as a symbolic act. The stone then becomes a clue, a material trace that reactivates a fragmentary memory. More than an object, it embodies a pas- sage, a survival, a fragile link between an erased past and a present that receives it.