Pierre-Alexandre Savriacouty

Since 2017, I have been working on a research territory called R-1. The genesis of this work goes back to the summer of 2003: a river had dried up and the water level had gone down so far that I could see a multitude of waste that had been hidden before. Washing-machine drums, boots, and waste of all kinds were bogged down in the mud. This scene left a strong impression on me. Four years ago, I started using cement to weight materials that are supposed to float up to the surface of water, like polystyrene and cork, as well as objects that are designed to be hung up, like chandeliers. 

The items are captured by the setting of cement and are forced to stay at the bottom of the water. Through this sculptural process, I make pieces of work that become mental and recollective anchors. In addition to the geological features, I have incorporated into these anchors, I have used chandeliers — cultural artifacts with strong emotional force that can sometimes span several generations. Binding them in cement is my way of protecting memories tied to them. In a more poetic sense, this lights up ocean depths — places usually deprived of light. 

This field of exploration has also led me to work on the deterioration of matter over time and climate change, the memory of places, petrification, the issue of waste, disappearance, and the capacity of water to reveal, conceal, and destroy. I have decided to extend this work by relating it to Chicago’s social and geographical history, and to the water of the Great Lakes, which form the world’s second-biggest volume of fresh water. 

In Chicago and on Lake Michigan, my research into aquatic environments could be applied to cover broader social and environmental issues. By taking the R-1 research territory, I hope to link, through an artistic practice, individual memories with a sedimentary take of natural or industrial materials in contact with water and its environment, thus constituting a geological and thus collective history.   

The development process would begin with an in-depth study of the lake, followed by meetings with residents of various Chicago neighborhoods. The project is to multiply the memorial and geographical samples in the form of objects, testimonies, molds, writings, photos, and drawings and to use them to aggregate them in the anchors.   

Alongside this gathering of accounts, my work with anchors regarding the deterioration and sedimentation of matter through climate change and the issue of waste will carry on. For these anchors, I will study the environment specific to Lake Michigan and collect natural, organic, and industrial objects on my outings on the lake. I will work on these using water, sand, and soil from the site. These two paths of research will be connected via the cement hold. They will form anchors that become sculptures in which historical and natural items produce delicate, temporal, aquatic precipitates. 

Like a rising sea that would carry everything in its path without distinction, the almost haphazard nature of the setting of the cement and water puts all the elements that make up my sculptures on the same level. Through these anchors, I wish to generate another reading of the present and the past without hierarchy where biodiversity, the great history of the American Middle West, the American Indian and African-American history as well as references to the different divinities linked to water in all these cultures are mixed together.