Gabrielle Chardigny

Gabrielle Chardigny is an installation artist who has exhibited in Germany, France, and Portugal. She has been awarded the Kunst Prize and participated in the Montemero Art Residency. Gabrielle describes her interests “in how natural resources and living organisms are extracted, displaced, and maintained within human-made systems. Industrial and synthetic materials are used not only as a contrast to natural elements, but as infrastructures that organize and condition their existence”.

The portfolio of Gabrielle Chardigny mostly consists of plants and various forms of foliage encased in greenhouse-like constructions of tarp. In these structures, there is an overt commentary on human impact and the relevance of ecology. The wrapped plants are barely visible within the structures, often appearing as a blur or shadow from the opaque tarp, such a presentation indicates a sense of confinement and entrapment. Gabrielle also uses salt deposits on textiles drenched in water to emanate a corrosive effect which seems like a social commentary on the impact of erosion on eco-systems. Often appearing as tunnels or hexagonal tubes, the various installations involving plants portray a conveyance of cynicism to humanity’s relationship with nature. In a way, these works may come off as a criticism to current sustainable practices and ecology as to whether they are efficient or even impactful enough to create a meaningful difference on fragile eco-systems. These interpretations may be intentional or not, but the portrayal of plants encased in carefully constructed structure-systems communicates a way of either returning the foliage into the earth or isolating them from human interaction, as if to shield them from human impact within the confines of imposed and overwhelming civilizational expansion.

With a red clay landscape, a direct link is made to the reality of gold mining sites and their ecological consequences. An intention to evoke a sterile, exhausted ground, soil which has been rendered infertile by extractive processes and the use of toxic substances such as cyanide. Contaminated and depleted, Is there gold on the moon? introduces a speculative question, but one which remains grounded in present concerns: if resources are exhausted on Earth, will extractive practices extend beyond? In this sense, the work is not about imagining life on another planet, but about critically reflecting on the continuity of extractive logics. Structures with salt deposits in works such as Las Salinas portray custom aquariums of salt-water, with the minerals becoming absorbed by clay and fabric. Such configurations are about salt extraction, and more specifically about traditional methods of harvesting salt. The work aims to highlight slower, environmentally embedded techniques, in contrast to industrial and mining-based salt production, which today accounts for the vast majority of global consumption and has significant ecological consequences.

Lazy Gardener V. 1 (pictured above) displays a rare scene within Gabrielle Chardigny’s portfolio where foliage is actually exposed through her installation. Not in the installation within, but rather the surrounding environment which appears to be a garden or complex overtaken by vines. This dichotomy between free-ranging plants and the ones confined within the installation reveals the differential systems between freedom of movement and entrapment affected by human impact.

Investigative and reflective, these ecological structures by Gabrielle Chardigny are a social commentary on sustainment and how constructed systems interact with nature, such as deforestation or an expanding city encroaching on a habitat-rich forest. The sense of cynicism becomes evident in choosing not to reveal the plants clearly to the spectator and encasing them within trapping mechanisms, which do not harm but reflect conceptual conveyance in transformation within confined spaces and controlled systems.

https://gabriellechardigny.com