Mixed media, 2024.
At the center of the space, the empty, elevated cage functions as both a threshold and a residual device. Neither entirely abandoned nor fully functional, it condenses the logics of confinement, preservation, and surveillance. It stands as a metaphor for a closed system of knowledge — that of institutions, norms, and property — and as a counter-space where emptiness becomes active, carrying the trace of an absence, a departure.
The cage door opens. In that movement, the shelves tip and dismantle their initial arrangement: no longer surfaces for archiving, but thresholds for flight. Birds, until then fixed within classificatory protocols — labeled, contained, observed — break free from taxonomy. They escape their condition as objects of knowledge. In motion, they shed their status as figures to be looked at and claim that of subjects. The archive comes alive, the collection turns back on itself: the birds become authors.
Produced and presented as part of the exhibition D’oreilles à bouches, curated by Léa Djurado, at Le 6b, Saint-Ouen, Île-Saint-Denis — with the support of the Fondation de France.
Carolle Sanchez 