François Fréchet |
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François Fréchet was born in Switzerland in 1954. From there, he went to live in Paris and later attended a Fine Art college in Aix-en-Provence. Upon obtaining his degree, Fréchet returned to Paris and worked with dancers and musicians in street theater for many years. During this period, Fréchet was making inflatables, used as scenery, costume and even as inside-space for play. In 1993, he left Paris for the countryside in the South West of France where he began studying wild flowers. His interest in nature began to transformed his work as he increasingly began to use natural materials and live plants, with a goal of speaking about environment, biodiversity, agriculture, and the relation-ship between human being and his landscape. Since 1995, Fréchet has worked exclusively on site-specific projects (although, the show he made before was built for a specific place), and has taken part to several events in Chili, Belgium, France, Germany, South Korea, Australia, Taiwan and, now, USA. | |
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The Greenhouse The project, Greenhouse, is a work which places value upon the wild flora of I-park while, at the same time, speaking about biodiversity. The title is a sort of play on words between French and English. A greenhouse is a house where we keep the tropical plants during winter and also could be a house which is green in color. In fact, this structure will become green, through the growing of the seeds that have been sowed. It is Fréchet's hope that the wind or the birds will bring many wild seeds in the spring. And, perhaps, several insects will built their home in it!!! It is an installation which will change with the seasons. Biodiversity not only refers to the small wild flowers, but also a whole ecosystem in balance, where each individual interacts with the others and is depend on the unit. This installation will tell this history . . . the history of the biodiversity which makes the landscape. The landscape cannot be reduced to only its economic value, or utility for food, dress, shelter, heat and equip the human being. It is this biodiversity which realizes it. All of the living beings (including the bacteria) constitute the landscape, without capacity to show direct profit for the human being, their only value (and it is immense!) is to exist and realize a landscape in its diversity and its evolution. The destruction of a chain link or their habitat inevitably calls into question the general stability. One could say that the biodiversity is a mirror of our relations with the other alive species. Fréchet also finds that is very important to show how marvellous it is . . . You (not specially you who are reading!) who don’t want sign the Kyoto protocol! |
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