Ève Constantin: L’ÉPONGE MÉCANIQUE

Video installation

January 18th — March 30th, 2024

L’éponge mécanique is a collaborative work combining visual and performative art. The artists, Élise Rouleau, the multidisciplinary aunt, and Ève Constantin, the dancer niece, form a symbiotic artistic duo. Together, they share a unique bond. L’éponge mécanique is formed through Élise’s passion for music and her curiosity for metalwork. Three musical scores are then born on three metal boards. A few months later, in December 2018, Ève gets involved in the project. She decides to explore movement, guided by the metal partitions placed randomly on the floor. The goal is to be a vehicle for movement, intuitively and without judgment. Specific to their artistic approaches, a common theme is targeted: self-transformation through art. In this vein, they maintain that any artistic disposition serves as an instrument of introspection, conducive to the metamorphosis of one’s experiences into emancipatory creation. After a video montage, the work presents a superposition of close-ups of the scores, scrolling like a mechanical piano, and an authentic dance improvisation, porous to any manifestation of movement, like a sponge.

“My body is a conductor, like metal which conducts heat or cold. I am a channel, letting myself change shape, letting me penetrate, letting me fill, letting myself be empty.” _ Ève Constantin

 

Image: image taken from the video L’Éponge mécanique , Image Credit: Élise Rouleau