The world's smallest hotel room

Snail Shell System is a work belonging to the collections of Les Abattoirs, Museum - Frac Occitanie Toulouse, created by the Danish collective N55. Designed as a shelter for one person, it is a snail shell that can be moved and installed almost anywhere. By slipping inside and around the work, Jeanne Gilois captures the place that comfort can have in a confined space. A trained pattern maker, she explores the shift from dressing the body to dressing the home. Napping is certainly more comfortable with a pillow, a duvet and a mattress.

Throughout the summer, from July to September, this nomadic and evolving refuge will be installed outdoors and will accompany the various events offered during the cultural summer and Heritage Month in Aulon. Guest artists will be able to use it and integrate it into their listening, reading, concert or dinner events, while passers-by will be able to take refuge there for a moment.

Residency by Jeanne Gilois
Gesture: ‘Dressing’

A trained pattern maker, Jeanne Gilois develops her research into volume through textiles. While she usually dresses bodies, in this context she dresses a house. The gestures she performs move and slide from one universe to another: rather than moulding fabric onto a mannequin and working on the architecture of a body, she designs, cuts and sews clothes for armchairs, windows and even walls.

From February to September, Jeanne Gilois is collaborating with the inhabitants of the Pyrenean village of Aulon to create utilitarian and playful textile pieces designed to dress the spaces of the Bertrone house, as well as the collective N55's habitable work, Snail Shell System.

The materials she uses draw on several stories and practices from the region: the agropastoral heritage of the Aure Valley, through the use of wool; the starry sky of Aulon (part of an International Dark Sky Reserve) through the use of reflective fabric; and finally, tourism, through the recovery of paraglider canvases from a local workshop (L'Atelier Volant, Jézeau).

Her creations interact with the furniture created by architect Jacques-Marie Ligot and designer Jade Marçais, as well as with the lighting fixtures created by glass artisan Lucie de Bodinat for the Transfo space.

Gestures programme

Supported by Les Abattoirs, Musée–Frac Occitanie Toulouse, this programme explores the work of artist-craftspeople who are committed to reinventing the relationship between craftsmanship and materials, with a renewed awareness of our relationship with ecosystems and an aspiration for a radical change in the model of society. At the heart of these encounters between craft practices and contemporary creation lie a host of gestures, active witnesses to vernacular know-how: weaving, braiding, blowing, carding, spinning, assembling, carving, knitting, engobing, flouring, moulding...

Characterised by their ephemeral nature, these gestures exist above all in the memory of those who have performed them: their richness must be continually transmitted, repeated and transformed. The various proposals in the programme (exhibitions, creative residencies, performances), which will be rolled out between 2025 and 2027 in the Occitanie region and at Les Abattoirs in Toulouse, contribute to the writing and transmission of a repertoire of gestures rooted in the culture and history of the region.

This exhibition is dedicated to the memory of our colleague William Gourdin.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Jeanne Gilois

A trained fashion designer, Jeanne Gilois developed her textile practice through various professional experiences, notably for Yves Saint Laurent, before creating her own clothing brand (@janji.couture on Instagram). Invited to take up residence at Transfo, she is evolving her practice to explore clothing outside its usual context, moving from dressing bodies to dressing the habitats of those same bodies.

Collectif N55

In 1996, the N55 collective brought together a group of young Danish artists in Copenhagen (Ion Sørvin, Ingvil Aarbakke, Anne Romme, and later other artists including Cecilia Wendt and Anne Rikke Luther Jørgensen) who set up a modular construction system at the crossroads of sculpture, architecture and design. Rather than creating conventional installations, they sought new functionalities and new needs, adapted to nomadic and collective lifestyles. Each production is accompanied by a technical information manual for anyone who wishes to experiment with it.

Lucie de Bodinat

Having trained at the Villa Arson (Nice) in 2022 and the International Centre for Research on Glass and Plastic Arts (Marseille) in 2023, Lucie de Bodinat does not define herself as an artist. Focusing her practice on glasswork, she operates at the frontier between art and craftsmanship, and always creates her works collaboratively. Interested in the interplay between the solidity and fragility of glass, as well as its relationship to sound, she responds to commissions from artists or collaborates with craftspeople to further her research. For Maison Bertrone, she creates portable light fixtures, moulded from the same slate used on the roofs of Aulon.

Jacques-Marie Ligot

Jacques-Marie Ligot is a young architect whose approach questions architecture through the study of gestures, with a particular focus on material and immaterial heritage. A 2017 graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Paris Val de Seine, he has worked in Japan and France (Ishigami + Associates, ChartierDalix, Moreau Kusunoki) and is the 2019 winner of Artiste in Architecture, a programme organised by the Mies van Der Rohe Foundation, Bozar and the University of Naples.

In collaboration with Jade Marçais, he designed seating for Maison Bertrone.

Jade Marçais

Jade Marçais is a designer and interior architect who graduated from the École Camondo in Paris in 2014. In 2019, she co-founded the Déjà studio with Camille Gibert, where they dedicate themselves to imagining spaces where architecture and design interact, in search of a way of living that goes beyond simple housing.

In collaboration with Jacques-Marie Ligot, she designed seating for Maison Bertrone.

The Transfo Association

The cultural association Le Transfo is dedicated to producing and disseminating works of art in rural and mountainous areas through a variety of projects: exhibitions, concerts, artist residencies, workshops, etc. Le Transfo aims to support emerging contemporary creation and to connect with local audiences, incorporating a participatory dimension into these projects as often as possible. Since this year, Le Transfo has had a permanent venue in Aulon, the Maison Bertrone, whose development in collaboration with artists, craftspeople and residents is at the heart of the association's accessible and inclusive project.