About the work

In the twelve internal paths of the Dauphin’s Grove, Dominique Petitgand has deployed an audio installation at ear level, using 24 speakers that relay the sound of a single voice delivering a fragmented, shattered narration that reveals the structure of place. This spotty monologue, punctuated by silence, accompanies the visitor along their way through the corridors of vegetation, creating echoes, rebounds, and associations. This work evokes a failing memory and a loss of temporal and spatial orientation, offering a journey as much for the mind as it is for the body: “an intimate yet public text and map, unique to each person who wanders through and listens.”

About the artist

Born in 1965 in Laxou, France, Dominique Petitgand lives and works in Paris and in Nancy, France.

Since 1992, Dominique Petitgand has been producing audio work in which voice, sound, musical ambience, and silence serve as elements for the creation of micro-universes. Ambiguity is ever-present between a reality principle (recorded words) and a projection into “mental stories and landscapes”: stories yet empty or in the making that belong to the listener alone. These sound montages bring into being a series of mental images, thereby opening up a narrative space in which the suspension of identity, context, and temporal structure evokes the back-and-forth of conception and desertion of thought.

The artist website