Julie Kieffer • Muktinath
2020, Sentiers des arts, Royan Atlantique
Julie Kieffer was born in 1989 in Evian les bains. Graduated from Villa Arson in 2016, she lives and works in Lyon.
In 2018, she was a resident at the Friche Lamartine in Lyon. At the same time, she received the Ateliers Médicis grant for the Création en Cours project developed within a primary school in the Jura region.
In 2019, she took part in several exhibitions in conjunction with the Lyon Biennial: House-Warming Party at Attrape Couleurs with Laura Pardini; at Arteppes in Annecy; and at Atelier Sumo.
She is currently a member of the Atelier Sumo, where she is preparing editorial collaborations with several artists.
Julie Kieffer's interest is in slender, tree-like figures that shape and structure certain landscapes. During a trip to Helsinki, she came across a monumental public sculpture by Elia Hiltunen in Sibelius Park. Made up of 600 metal tubes and built as a tribute to the Finnish classical music composer Jean Sibelius, the wind makes it sing to the rustle of the nearby birch trees. This organ imposed itself on her by its size: it goes beyond the body to get closer to the scale of the landscape, more vast, more open. This elongated form came back to her to become the elongated chimney in the Muktinath artwork.
Muktinath is the name of the highest peak she reached on a trek in the Annapurna mountains of Nepal. At the top of a mountain, you can feel the wind blowing across the heights of the landscape. The body is held in place by the air that touches it, traced by breath. Every evening, in the guest houses of the Annapurna stage villages, a fire is lit, a place of comfort after an 8-hour day's walk. We gather around the fireplace to warm up, the sensation of the wind still on our skin, the sound of the air entering the pipe, a delicate whisper accompanying our words, exchanging experiences around a hearth that brings us to life.
The work Muktinath 190920 emerged from these memories, an installation consisting of a series of large earthenware fireplaces fired outdoors. Placed in a landscape, these earthenware chimneys become receptacles for the air to nestle in. Perhaps you'll hear it slip through like an organ.
Studio Ganek supports the artist in disseminating his work. The work Muktinath was produced and presented at the Sentiers des arts in Royan in 2020.
