Kintsugi, reflection of women

Pigment prints on Japanese paper, torn and repaired with 24-carat gold.

Kintsugi, reflection of women

Pigment prints on Japanese paper, torn and repaired with 24-carat gold.

Photo-céramique

Photographie sur céramique cassée et réparée au kintsugi, grès émaillé.

KINTSUGI, women reflection : Repairing. Rebuild. Reinvent.

 
Kintsugi comes from the Japanese Kin (gold) and Tsugi (joint), and literally means: gold joint. This ancestral technique, discovered in 15th-century Japan, involves repairing broken ceramics with lacquer, and highlighting scars with real gold powder. Cared for, then honored, the broken object can paradoxically become stronger, more beautiful and more precious.
 
This photographic series expresses the resilience, reconstruction and strength of women who are victims of sexual violence.  Rape, incest, harassment, excision, domestic violence – all the women photographed have these cracks that they try to repair one day at a time, each in her own way. Novelists, comedians, directors, actresses, committed students, association presidents, jurists, they are learning to breathe again and to turn their wounds into guiding forces. By capturing their reflection in my lacquers, I offer them a new look at themselves. Then I print their reflection on ceramic or paper, break, tear and repair with Kintsugi. Each piece is made with 24-carat gold.
 
This process of symbolic repair thinks about and heals wounds. By highlighting their fault lines with kintsugi, I sublimate their lines of strength. In sisterhood.

Laetitia Lesaffre

Smiling, hiding, exhausting yourself. Spending every day outside yourself.
Living deported, without anyone knowing.
She still laughs, perhaps a little more than before,
because her heart is so heavy that when joy comes, she throws herself into it.
Adélaïde Bon, The little girl on the ice floe

Photographie sur céramique en cours de réparation au kintsugi

These photo ceramics are broken and then repaired using the genuine Kintsugi technique.

Artworks kintsugi :

Photographs on ceramics, broken then repaired with Kintsugi, 24-carat gold powder.

Pigment prints mounted on canvas and gilded with 24-carat gold leaf.

Photographie sur céramique en cours de réparation au kintsugi, avec la laque bengara

The presumption of innocence of the aggressors is not tempered by any credibility for the victims.’

‘Like me, several dozen women believed that the time made our condemnation to silence obsolete and possible that of our aggressor, one of the most famous men in France.
That’s not what happened. We were classed out. But our loneliness bubbles burst. We met, told each other, supported. We made the short ladder to overcome the walls of discouragement.
We have spoken above, more. ‘

Hélène De Vynck. Impunity.

 

‘I can’t remember when I started to forget

I’m afraid in the evening, the roses are no longer under their bells

And even black cats, have stars in their pockets

I walk on my hands to see the lightning on my feet 

They say I have a head… in the air of a doll’

Vanessa Aiffe Ceccaldi. Extracts of  her show CACHE CACHE