le geste du commun
Pierre Boggio, Julie Escoffier, Gisèle Gonon
Curation :
Émilie d’Ornano and Livia Tarsia in Curia
Exhibition from
February 21st
to April 19th 2025
For their second collaboration, the art center KOMMET and the nomadic residency an· other here presents the collective exhibition le geste du commun (the common gesture) in Lyon, France. Following a joint residency between France and Germany, artists Pierre Boggio, Julie Escoffier and Gisèle Gonon unveil the results of their research conducted in Berlin and in the village of Montbrun-les-Bains in Drôme. This exhibition brings together pieces that explore the notion of community through our links with stories, territories and collective dynamics.
At the crossroads of folklore, orality and collective rituals, Pierre Boggio studies visible and invisible forms of transmission. His installation summons family heritage, culinary traditions and local mythologies. He revisits legendary figures in the form of pots, representing the Tarasque, the Ondine and the Orcolat. These creatures, from popular stories, embody telluric forces, metamorphosis and myths of protection or threat, thus reactivating a collective memory.
At the heart of this work, a cookbook is constructed, where each element becomes the witness of a culinary heritage, nourished by the stories and experiments of those who perpetuate them. During the exhibition, visitors are invited to sip a beverage and to transmit, in writing, anecdotes associated with cooking. Through this convivial moment, his installation recalls the way in which knowledge is spread, in particular through speech, the sharing of a meal or the repetition of an ancestral gesture. In exchange, the artist gives the opportunity to compose a booklet from the recipes available. Each loose page is distinguished by the choice of its own typography and an illustration from his iconographic archives, giving the recipe a form of mystical personification. By reviving these means of transmission that are both personal and universal, Pierre Boggio questions the way in which cooking structures our social ties, forges our relationship to the territory and cultivates a common language.
Gisèle Gonon explores the countryside in its agricultural relationships and affective dimensions. Her work is based on common materials, rooted in an intimate narrative of rurality.
For her installation at KOMMET, Gisèle Gonon draws from her personal history, evoking a peasant life and queer lives in a rural environment. Inspired by the medieval heritage of Montbrun-les-Bains, she reinterprets the traditional banner, a symbol of rallying and collective identity, to display the struggles of the LGBTQIA+ community on a tarpaulin. The latter is decorated with lavender patterns, a purple plant emblematic of both Drôme Provençale and the queer community. Gisèle Gonon integrates an anchor plate, an element used to consolidate the structure of a building, which here becomes a metaphor for resistance and the bonds of a community to be preserved. This motif continues in the finials, whose design is also inspired by the aesthetics of the Echinops ritro, a hermaphrodite flower also known as the southern globethistle that can be found around the residency.
The soundtrack that accompanies this banner gives voice to those who project new narratives in the countryside, thus inscribing these testimonies in a landscape that can be perceived as inhospitable. Through this work, Gisèle Gonon affirms the possibility of a queer identity in a rural environment, opening a space where they can flourish.
Julie Escoffier examines the properties of materials and their ancestral symbolism. Arranged on the floor, her installation questions the action of time on matter and the way in which it is perceived, manipulated and activated. The work takes the form of a luminous hearth where artifacts made of rosin, a translucent pine resin, are connected to a sound device. Sensitive to heat, this fragile material reveals a tactile and vibratory dimension. Its forms evoke “witches’ stones”, rocks naturally perforated by water erosion, to which protective virtues are attributed. Piezoelectric sensors record the vibrations of the material in contact with visitors, generating an evolving and unpredictable sound score. The installation is thus based on interaction and activation, offering an intuitive and silent ritual. This non-verbal experience engages the body and underlines our relationship to a vulnerable world, calling for measured and delicate attention.
Echoing the research of British anthropologist Tim Ingold, there is an interdependence between the organism and its environment. Julie Escoffier’s work illustrates this relational vision of the world, where beings and materials are never isolated but always caught in a network of mutual influences and transformations.
Pierre Boggio, Julie Escoffier and Gisèle Gonon question acts that enhance our connections, prolong resistance and accompany ongoing transformations. Each of these installations invites a shared experience, where the gesture – whether culinary, symbolic or tactile – becomes a tool for reappropriation and collective resonance. In a world marked by tensions and profound changes, these artists sketch out relational micro-territories where stories are constructed through interactions. Thus, le geste du commun is not limited to a single reflection on the community: it activates its mechanisms, reaffirming the importance of the links that connect us to others, to spaces and to our environment.
Biographies
Pierre Boggio lives and works in Lyon.
Graduating with a DNSEP in graphic design from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Lyon and the postgraduate course Kaolin at the École Nationale Supérieur d’art in Limoges, his work has notably been exhibited at Espace Les Barreaux (Paris), at the Centre International d’Art et du Paysage in Vassivière, La Bonbonnière (Les Roches de Condrieu), at the Attrape-Couleurs (Lyon), and even in 2024 at the project space WIRWIR during his residency with an· other here (Berlin). In 2022, he co founded P.B. City, a curatorial and artistic project leading to exhibitions at the Atelier LaMezz (Pierre-Bénite) and in several spaces in Lyon such as Monopôle, La Factatory, the Réfectoire des Nonnes and the BF15.
Julie Escoffier lives and works in Lyon.
Graduating with a DNSEP from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Lyon in 2013, she completed her postgraduate course at the E.N.P.E.G « La Esmeralda » in Mexico. Her work has been presented in France and internationally, notably at the Festival Mouvement d’art (La Teste-de-Buche), at Kashagan (Lyon), at Untitled Art (Miami), at ALMANAQUE fotográfica (Mexico), at Efrain Lopez Gallery (Chicago) and at the Galerie Les Territoires (Montréal). In parallel, she takes part in several art residencies, including CASA WABI (Puerto Escondido, Oax.) in 2017, the Centre International d’Art et du Paysage in Vassivière (Beaumont-du-Lac) in 2021 and an·other here (Berlin) in 2024.
Gisèle Gonon lives and works in Berlin.
Graduating with a DNSEP from the École Supérieure d’Art et Design in Saint-Étienne in 2005, in 2018, she joined the Goldrausch postgraduate training program in Berlin. Her work has been presented in various museums and exhibition spaces across Europe, including KINDL (Berlin), EKKM Contemporary Art Museum (Tallinn), Bundeskunsthalle (Bonn), gr_und (Berlin), Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei (Leipzig) and Week-end de l’art contemporain (Bordeaux). She participates in several artist residencies, including La Factatory (Lyon) and Tallinn Art Hall (Tallinn) in 2021 and also with an·other here (Montbrun-les-Bains) in 2024.
Captions
Pierre Boggio
Tarasque, 2024
Red stoneware
19 x 23 x 17 cm
Ondine, 2024
White stoneware
26 x 20 x 16 cm
Orcolat, 2024
White stoneware
20 x 28 x 30,5 cm
Tridacna, 2025
White stoneware, oribe, black, brown and silver enamels, rings
39 x 32 x 15 cm
Recettes, 2024 – en cours
Compiling pages, risography
6 x 19 cm
Lune & Ouroboros, 2025
White stoneware, slip, enamel, luster
28 x 28 x 15 cm
Coquilles, 2025
Porcelain, enamel
12 x 12 x 6,5 cm
Julie Escoffier
8/ entières même brisées, elles sont le feu et l’eau dans la même transparence immortelle*, 2025
Rosin castings, contact microphones, sound mixer, speakers and lighting device
Varying dimensions
*The title is an extract of Pierres by Roger Caillois
This project received support from Aide individuelle à la création from the DRAC Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.
9/ Dissidences des Champs, 2025
Installation : Silver and black tarpaulin machine embroidered and sewn by hand, pink, yellow, violet and black thread
Sculptures in forged iron patinated with beeswax, made in collaboration with Lucas Poutout.
Hand-engraved steel tubes inspired by the Robert·e font by Eugénie Bidaut from the typographic creation collective Bye Bye Binary.
240 × 200 × 260 cm
Sound: Text in french, audio loop 06’04’’
Performers : Colette Angeli, Nico Maria Moscatelli, Gisèle Gonon. With the contribution of people from the LGBTQIA+ community who participated in the “Café-Gâteau Queer” events during the artistic residency in Drôme Provençale in the Autumn of 2024.
This text takes its roots from these collective writing and reading workshops as well as from the pinpointed view of the artist as a queer lesbian.
Sound mixing : Ὀρφεύς
Pitch
For their second collaboration, the art centre KOMMET and the nomadic residency an· other here presents the collective exhibition le geste du commun (the common gesture) in Lyon. Following a joint residency between France and Germany, artists Pierre Boggio, Julie Escoffier and Gisèle Gonon unveil the results of their research conducted in Berlin and in the village of Montbrun-les-Bains in Drôme.
Through installation, sound, ceramics and graphic design, the three artists explore acts of social and ecological resistance, repair and reinvention. Through engaging and participatory practices, this exhibition invites us to rethink ways of building community by valuing interactions, transmissions and sensitive experiences.