Monumental Installation
A State Commission:
“The Confessions of the Stone”
The French State, through the Centre des Monuments Nationaux, provided Pascal di Péri with an exceptional venue. The space he occupied is now one of the main attractions of the Château d’Angers. See the full portfolio below.
The Work: Concepts and Symbols
“You are on the ground floor of the Tower of the Château d’Angers’ mill. This place was once a jail. Up to 60 prisoners were forced to cram into this space. The memory of this place is so dramatic, so haunting, that it seemed to me that long before the creation of this installation, it was already seeping from the walls.
As an archaeologist of this precious memory, I wanted to probe the soul of these stones to make a little more tangible the foam of this energy and the narrative convulsions it emanated. Raising the floor at its center into a volcano of golden vapors, this diaphanous yet absolutely determined memory frees itself from the shroud of oblivion until it shatters it.
The allegorical liberation of this historical mist, evoked through frenzied meanders, radiates in the same nebula both the throes of suffering and the survival of hope. It conjures and pays homage…
Three spectral shadows, like spirits, emerge from this fibrous magma in a macabre dance. The spiral of this suspended trinity refers us to the factual history of this prison as well as to the timeless and universal stigmas associated with the process of confinement.
Sixty hands are projected there, into the molten lava of these confessions. Whether they free themselves or get lost, their abundance symbolizes both the desolation of the captives and the tool of their spiritual escape, characterized by the graffiti that dots the walls of this oppressive place.
An enchanting voice and a soundscape from the depths of time turn inexorably here. They testify to the prisoners’ circular wandering: the perpetual round of torment and the phantoms of stagnant time… A poignant and paradoxical evocation that defines this place above all else.
For a long time, here, punishment crushed human beings, leading them toward death, while at the top of this tower, the millstone of the mill once turned, grinding grain to sustain life within the fortress.
I developed this creation over approximately eight months, mainly using a technique I developed called “knot-structure”. More than thirty kilometers of thread constitute it. The center of this installation is about 4 meters high. It is through this technique, composed of knotted metal threads, that I base most of my research on the themes of night, emptiness, energy, frequency-based information, and the wave/particle mystery that energizes the void. Confinement being the night of the body.”
The work is sound-based.
Text and sounds both contribute to its emotional world...
The text (written and spoken by Pascal di Péri):
<em>I am the millstone of a wind-exposed mill, buffeted by the dark winds of history.
I am the repentant stone.</em>
<em>I am the millstone of time that crushes the eternity of the prisoners.
I am the breath of a volcano whose plumes pierce the walls of the past.</em>
<em>I am the inexorable round of punishment condemning every step to perpetuity.
I am the secret eruption of a mouth whose crater has long been enslaved.</em>
<em>I am the furrow without seed of the wall’s witherings.
I am the ember that engraves the dreamed boundaries of its ashes.</em>
<em>I am the tainted circle where all inspirations suffocate.
I am the whisper of beyond-time where expiatory sweat trickles.</em>
<em>I am the pestle that crushes the fossilized germs of hope.
I am the incantatory magma of the soliloquies of agony.</em>
<em>I am the heart of stone whose wheel only grinds the dust of stagnant days.
I am the molten memory invading the deleterious vapors of oblivion.</em>
<em>I am the macabre waltz whose waves engulf the tears of silence.
I am the incandescent lava lifting the slag of petrified centuries.</em>
<em>I am the opaque spiral whose meanders carve only the void.
I am the viscous grime of the night oozing fleeting shadows.</em>
<em>I am the carousel of twilights with obscure torments.
I am the ferment of sunless dawns that ignite the dampness of laments.</em>
<em>I am the cesspool of the oubliettes and its waterwheel of dying in iron shirts.
I am the shiver of precious metal brushing against the interlaces of amnesia.</em>
<em>I am the crusher of the sterile entrails of survival.
I am the whisper of chimeras with fumes still captive.</em>
<em>I am the curved trajectory of alienation whose vise presses the remnants of reason.
I am the anguish of the hand that scars the bitter vaults of waiting.</em>
<em>I am the wave of soulless granite desecrating the dignity of the confined.
I am the teeming nebula from which bursts of confessions emerge.</em>
<em>I am the millstone of time… I am the confession of the stone…
I am the millstone… I am the confession… I am the confession…</em>