La Montagne Allégorique
Laurence Aëgerter is a laureate of the national “Performance” photographic commission, 2023, initiated by the French Ministry of Culture and implemented by the Centre national des arts plastiques (CNAP), in the context of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
In this context she developed the series of works La Montagne Allégorique (The allegoric Mountain), an ensemble consisting of a film, Descente de Géants (Descending Giants); embroidered photographs, Les Voies (The Paths), and Montagnes souterraines (Underground Mountains), with relief inks silkscreened photographs.
La Montagne Allégorique questions the concepts of performance and competitiveness infused into society by the sporting media. Aëgerter chose to work with young people, approaching climbing as a metaphor for the journey of life to come. The familiar world of young people, their interests, desires and sensitivities mingle with the symbolic language of climbing and mountains, the ascent, the surpassing of oneself and the experience of personal satisfaction.
In response to the national photographic commission, Aëgerter chose to transpose the sport of climbing to the situation of teenagers living in specialised social care homes (run by the Direction départementale des affaires sanitaires et sociales in France and Jungend Hilfe in Germany).
This was the starting point for a participatory photographic project involving around twenty teenagers in care homes. These homes were located not only in France, Marseille but also in Germany, Herne, thus highlighting the universal values of the Olympic Games.
Les Voies (The Paths)
Each child has drawn his / her path by pricking tiny holes with a needle into the image of the mountain. I transformed their paths into coloured, hand-embroidered lines. The titles mention each child’s name in correspondence with their drawn paths, to be read from left to right.
Les Montagnes souterraines (Underground mountains)
Consists of a series of five photograph collages silkscreened with relief inks. The children composed collages according to the lines and surfaces of the indoor climbing walls they had climbed. Underground Mountains are based on the leftovers of their works. The stacked photographs with their cut-outs reveal fragments of reality underneath, as if from a realm of unconsciousness. I silkscreened with relief ink, atop the collages the original lines of their climbing walls.
Warm thanks to Awouad, Djibril, Nasra, Seradj, Sofiane, Solea, Yasmine and Annabell, Céline, Malon, Marco and Mixian and their educators Ambroise Imbert, Daniel Niggemann, Steffen Thesmann; respectively in Maison d’enfants Les Mouettes in Marseille ASE (Aide Sociale à l’Enfance), France and Ev. Kinderheim Jugendhilfe Herne, Germany.
