A bunch of flowers for Poincaré

Mural paintings made by the students of the studio "Mural Art and Poetics of Spaces" from the art school "École des Arts Décoratifs" (Paris).

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©Institut Henri Poincaré, École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs

For the 110th anniversary of Henri Poincaré's death, the staircase of the institute is covered with new colors that owe nothing to random. They resonate and bounce from floor to floor, sublimating the reverberation of light.

Each stage of the building spreads out like a flower, generously offering itself to the community. All of them tell a story, pay homage to research, to mathematics, to physics and to Henri Poincaré. But above all, they celebrate the power and the bright joy of the meeting between various disciplines.

So, curious minds, take this walk through a laboratory of colors and languages. Perhaps you will come across the inspiration or the breath of a soul with a true heart.

 

 


Production date: 2021/2022
Artistic direction: Giuseppe Caccavale, artist and teacher, École des Arts Décoratifs
Production: Yoann Bry, Audrey Caume, Imane Chaheb, Jeremy Huchet, Niknaz Khalouzadeh, Théo Ponce, Mandresy Randrianarivony, Lou-Anne Spirin, Emma Watson. Special thanks to Marie Bellan, Léa Grabowski, Simon Thoument.

Two formulas, which in a renewed light, invite us to watch in a different way.  
In the shadow of Henri Poincaré's knowledge.

Through its succession of staircases, the creation shows the various ways of the researchers.
This proposal in shades of blue and green illustrates this shared place of the institute, where their paths cross.

Henri Poincaré was a scientist with a wealth of ideas in mathematics and physics. And this institute which bears his name is a temple of knowledge and research. This mural project reflects the spirit of the researcher by reproducing his sketches, equations, erasures and manuscripts.

A work about research: this territory of experiment and gathering. The image is created by links, combinations and interactions between the history of the institute and the neighborhood.

To bring together the writing and the wall, this one becomes a textual area, a white page to invest. To aerate the text so it becomes a graphic dimension that is more sensitive.

To do this project, I made a wish - according to an old Iranian tradition which is still in practice - on Hafez's book of poems, and I randomly picked up one of his poems.  The third verse of a poem containing ten was chosen. Here is what it says:
"He will be eternal forever whose heart has known love
And the world will keep these marks"
I wrote this poem in Persian, inspired by the Kufi writing style, one of the first calligraphy styles of the Persian-Arabic alphabet.

Based on the online experiment "Random walks in space" provided by the CNRS, we have developed a 3-dimensional grid reproducing the floors of the Institut Henri Poincaré. Using the same random process - but applied to our grid-institute - the shape which is created step after step becomes a journey between the walls of the institute.

Hyperbolic geometry.
This project is a graphic reappropriation of the visual and formal language coming from non-Euclidean geometry, especially in the hyperbolic figures of Henri Poincaré.