After several weeks of work, the artist Séverin Guelpa will present to the public his work entitled the columns of Boujaafar. Come on May 11 from 5 p.m. on the Esplanade de la Plage Hadrumete.
It is behind the Sousse Palace hotel that the artist Séverin Guelpa created monumental columns which will be officially inaugurated today. We invite you to discover the project and the artist
“On the beach of Boujaafar, Séverin Guelpa installs mounted columns piece by room of various materials, concrete, earth, wood, stainless steel, rubble, marble and stone … These materials found from different places and sites of Sousse, tell Sousse through its land, agricultural land, its sites, the traces of its disused hotels and its architectural diversity, its architectural diversity between yesterday and Today … caroted, chopped, casting, the parts that constitute these columns, made of strata sediments de facto acquire an archaeological aspect.
These columns stand as a sequencing of the city’s genome which seems to keep its past, display its present and also predict its future …, in a word its culture. This is the conception that the city’s culture artist is made, of all city, made up of ever homogeneous components.
The imposing marble blocks deposited on the ground floor of these columns are in tune with erect stratifications and clues which they disclose on the culture of Homo Faber. On the same block of marble, the sides cut by giant discs contrast with the natural profile of the stone in its geological form. Natural resources and intangible resources are the key elements of this work which is intended to celebrate composite and heterogeneous. »»
Séverin Guelpa is an artist and curator. He lives and works in Geneva. Inspired by regions of the world he explores and the resources there, the work of Séverin Guelpa addresses questions of identity, culture, time or even emancipation.
His architectures, like his sculptures, videos and photographs speak or work from raw materials, stones, construction elements or recovery materials that he extracts, assembles or tension to talk about our relationship to the world and to the resources we depend.
He is generally inspired and works from threatened sites, most often within desert regions, seeking in the singularity of these places and the knowledge of people who live there the lines of strength of his work.
This project is led by Elbirou Art Gallery, with the support of Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Embassy in Tunisia, the Canton of Geneva, Matza and
Bakir marble. Also note the partnership with the Higher Institute of Fine Arts in Sousse and the municipality of Sousse.
