After a few months researching utopia and announcing that I was going to work on the theme of the press, it was time to clarify my project. The tense political context in my home country, France, has somehow become a source of reflection and inspiration for this new project.
I have a year's residency at Kulturhuef and will be printing a newspaper there.
This newspaper will be made up of drawings reprinted in linocut and will be utopian. Four days in residence have enabled me to synthesise four months of research, and not without difficulty.
Week 02 (September 2024)
The diary begins with early childhood, peace and freedom. Then it moves on to life, love, work, housing, old age and finally belief. Now I know how it's organised, all I have to do is create and print it.
I've created a first plate that I engrave at the campsite in the evenings after my residence days. It's about a free and wild childhood. I've brought back a very fine 50g/m2 paper and I'm testing linocut prints. It was only after 80 pages that I realised that the paper was too thin and that its transparency made the print too dirty. It's a lesson that took me a long time to grasp, but at least I've learnt it for next month ;)
October 2024
This month, I've been coming to Kulturhuef once a week to make time for my other ongoing projects, which abound at the end of the year. This gives me a sense of regularity, but time goes by extremely quickly, so I have to structure my work even more.
The first pages of the utopian diary I'm working on are starting to take shape, and I've decided to share some of them with the public. These will hang on the walls of the Kulturhuef Bistro until the end of the residency.
I've also shared a first page on social media. This design invites contemplation, or how to dream of an oil rig. It's a brief preview of the final object I'm designing, but I hope it will raise the public's curiosity.
November 2024 (18-21/11)
I'm making progress on my utopian diary.
I'm taking each page as a theme for a newspaper and trying to put it through a utopian mould. This week I'm making it a utopia of information. More than a necessity or a freedom, I treat it as an art. You learn about an object, its structure and uses, and then you sublimate it. Die Kunst des informierens
December 2024
In Luxembourg there are said to be between 16,000 and 20,000 empty housing units.
When it comes to the subject of housing, my political position is clear, but I find it hard to conceptualise and illustrate a utopia representing that.
What's more, the ultimate aim of the project is not to make a political pamphlet talking about ownership, nationalisation, public housing or renting.
After some thought, I'm going with the idea of a simple utilitarian utopia: housing is for housing. Logement vide, porte ouverte
February 2025 (25-27/02)
At the same time as my residency at Kulturhuef, I'm working on a graphic novel with my wife, Le temps de trajet.
She's a sociology researcher and writes about the time we give to work and the journey to get there, compared with the time we save for leisure, rest and the people close to us.
This week, I'm doing a double page spread in the newspaper on free time. Hands are pulling the hands of a clock. They stretch out in a thread while other pairs of hands catch up with them to knit together free time.
March 2025 (04-05/03)
This time I'm only at Kulturhuef for two days. So I won't have time to complete a full page. I therefore decide to wander around the museum for a while, taking a closer look at the machines, the letters and the clichés. I think it's a shame to concentrate only on the lino, and that the museum has so much more to offer. Martina and I talk about it, and she advises me to take a look at the archives and see if I can find some inspiration there. A large part of the museum's collection is dedicated to advertisements from the 70s and 80s. I think they look like utopias of a less stuffy era.
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The concept behind the project is utopia. The idea of a utopian newspaper seems to me to be going down a blind alley. In fact, when I talk about it to people around me, I sense a lack of understanding. To make matters worse, printing on fine paper would add a major technical challenge. We were talking it over with Léa and she said, ‘Why don't you just make posters? I thought it was a great idea and decided to change direction.
