lle de Nantes (eastern point),
Hôtel de Région
“Le refuge”
Stéphane Thidet
Stéphane Tidet was born in 1974 ; he works and lives in Paris. Childhood and entertainment are his main inspirations. By altering simple objects with a little bit of inventiveness or absurdity, he creates a hybrid reality, where melancholy and disillusionment often overtake innocence and the notion of play. Both a source of wonder and a dark vision of reality, Stéphane Tidet’s universe triggers off a permanent state of tension.
Part of Le Printemps de Septembre festival in Toulouse (2007), Le refuge is a piece wrapped up with absurdity: a wood shed, supposed to protect from the weather’s mood, where rain is coming down in buckets !
A scale 1 model, basically equipped, the shed’s door wide-open. The rain prevents anybody from going in. Outside, everything is dry… An incongruous situation, spectacular and poetic.
Situated in the great hall of the Hôtel de Région, the architecture of the building met the sobriety of the shed.
— Courtesy : Galerie Aline Vidal / Une production Printemps de Septembre, Toulouse / CNAP 2007