The fragility of memory, between preservation and disappearance, is at the heart of my artistic work. I am interested in the constructions of memory, such as documents, monuments and narratives, as well as the care and maintenance they receive. During a research grant at TAMAT (Musée de la Tapisserie et des Arts Textiles, Tournai, Belgium) in 2020-2021, I decided to focus my work on the tapestry restoration workshop within the museum itself. I view ancient tapestry as a textile monument often linked to mythical stories and see it as an extension of my previous research on monuments and commemorative spaces relating to the two world wars.

When I arrived at TAMAT, the conservator-restorer was working on a monumental Aubusson tapestry1 from the late 17th century entitled Jeux d'enfants (Children's Games)2 where two scenes form a frieze depicting a festive theme in fashion at the time, with nine children or young people dancing to music or doing archery in a forest setting. My research would primarily be based on observation of the conservation work being carried out on the tapestry.

This article will also provide an opportunity to consider the role that an artist can play in reflecting on the processes of memory construction. In what ways do her vision, approach and working methods differ from other practices? How can her research enrich the work of other disciplines such as archaeology, anthropology and history? What forms and what language will she invent to convey what she has gleaned from her research?

'The reverse side tells you the truth.'

                                      Louise Bourgeois

                                                          (Translation by the author)

I was interested in the reverse, the backside of the tapestry from the start. It's where the reinforcement takes place and also where the brilliance of the original colours is preserved. But I could not have imagined what it would be find myself under the tapestry and see the other side. Seeking to capture the gestures of the conservator-restorer so that I could better immerse myself in them, I filmed his hands at work: one above and one below the tapestry, which was laid out horizontally. Handling needles, threads and scissors. Removing old restorations. Repairing and sewing intermediaries - the openings created during weaving between two areas of different colours.3 Hanging on to the dialogue between the hands, the passage of the needle from one world to another, I suddenly tip over into an unknown zone. Crouched on the floor, camera pointed upwards, I find myself underneath, there among the tiny scraps of threads that have been removed from the tapestry. There in the dust. There in the half-light, under multiple points of light piercing through the suddenly visible holes. No more image, no more story, no more hero. A starry night sky animated by vibrations under the regular action of the needle. It is here, 'in the interstices, in the shadows and backlighting'4 that something unexpected will happen for the rest of my work.

The archaeologist digs through the many layers of the ground; here, it is an infrathin layer,5 the edge of the tapestry, the boundary between the top and the bottom, that has been crossed. My vision of the tapestry was turned upside down, taking me back to both the source and the finitude of the object: the wool thread, from its creation to its becoming dust.

Unlike an archaeologist, and perhaps closer in this respect to the approach of an anthropologist, I immersed myself in a living space and terrain. For the first few months, I was fully and intensely submerged in this special place that is the conservation workshop, visiting it every week, interviewing the conservator-restorer, observing him, filming him, consulting his archives, in order to gain a better understanding of the different components of his work. I also met the owners of old tapestries and interviewed them about the history of their tapestries, which had often been inherite.

Then, a bit like in experimental archaeology, I familiarised myself with ancestral gestures without really knowing where it would lead me, trying to better understand the path  of the material from fleece to thread. Cleaning, carding, dyeing, spinning. 

But it was also, and above all, the collection over the months of scraps from old restoration threads that had fallen to the ground in the workshop that finally caught my attention.6 This time joining this time the archaeologist whose job it is to 'stir up the rubble', 'gather up the rags',7 it was from these scraps that I drew the raw material for my research, or rather, that it revealed itself to me after waiting for many months, in suspense, in a glass container on my table. This is probably the meaning of 'the archaeologist's gaze': when 'things begin to look at us from their buried spaces and their buried times'.8