The research work presented here could only be developed over a long, slow period of discovery, learning, wandering and trial and error. During the initial phase of the project, the question was above all of opening up the fields, digging in all directions: on the tables, in the files, on the floor, behind the tapestry, in the rubble of the past and the present, and then to let any discoveries, the various harvests, gradually build up in layers within me1. 

Over time, something took hold of me. It was almost nothing, but it was a lot. What was there, embedded in the tapestry, 'but which no one could see because it was so visible',2 was suddenly rendered tangible through the conservator-restorer's act of cutting, through the extraction of the original medium. Detachment allowed a certain attachment to unfold.

A series of seemingly scientific gestures followed: observing, collecting, sorting, analysing, reconstructing, taking inventory, archiving... the infinitesimal. My research and creative process may at times resemble those of an archaeologist, historian or anthropologist, but it is not the same. My research method involves borrowing and freely interweaving gestures and actions from these different practices. I was only able to collect these bits and pieces because I was in a workshop that was still active. If a scientist could find some interest in this waste, the exploitation and the results would have been very different from those of the artist using a specific, plastic language. By merit of its lasting memorial worth, the waste had progressively acquired the value of a narrative and undergone a transformation through the act of artistic creation, becoming the object, the heart of the creation of new works.

After an initial reaction of incomprehension, the conservators-restorers I met expressed astonishment and surprise, on the one hand at my interest in this waste and its collection, and on the other at the plastic works produced, the discovery of such 'beautiful objects' from 'old threads';3 and they suddenly found themselves in a strange confrontation with their own work put into a temporal and spatial perspective.

Highlighting these 'mute witnesses' through a work of art makes them speak. But what they are 'talking about' goes beyond what happens in a tapestry conservation workshop. Removed frome their context, these works continue to move the viewer, touching on something essential, as one conservator-resorator pointed out.

If the envers (back) of the tapestry, of which waste is a part, is associated with disorder and ruin, Didi-Huberman also points out that the French preposition envers means ‘towards’, 'with regard to', 'near to'. Envers entail attention. These scraps of threads doubtlessly insist on this. They demand attention. They are waiting to be looked at. Because through them, a host of hands and human beings are recalled to our memory and bear witness to a practice of caring for a particular object. The gesture of the artist, seeking to preserve and protect these bits of thread, is an additional gesture of care that adds to those of these unknown men and women. 

During a discussion, TAMAT's conservator-restorer explained to me that his work had to be as discreet as possible, invisible.4 He was demonstrating his ethical duty to take a back seat to the woven work, which is the only thing that counts. The exposure of (very) old and (very) recent restoration thread waste during this research work strongly contradicts this intention and introduces a very human dimension, full of attention to (or even affection for?) the patrimonial object.

In a completely different context, the French philosopher Baptiste Morizot invites us 'to attach ourselves to what only yesterday was invisible, but in fact constitutes what makes my life alive: its weaving with so many other lives. Detachment, attachment'.5 He puts the spotlight back on the concept of 'regard' for living things, which needs to be rediscovered and reinvented. And then, suddenly, we come full circle: the French verb regarder (to look at) includes the word égard (regard). Perhaps that's also what  'the archaeologist's gaze' means, showing consideration for what was invisible and bringing to light what was in the shadows after a long time of burial and oblivion.