Driven by notions of identity, habitat and environment, through her work Catherine Cocherel examines our relationship with nature. In her garden she plays with notions of scale, the poetry of time and living things, and showcases immersive plant sculptures on a human scale. As such, we walk on a giant seed in the centre of a natural garden. Like seedlings, the Nests, spherical sculptures, microcosms of our mother earth on a scale of 1:10,000,000, highlight the concept of ecological finiteness and offer themselves to us as planets to be dreamed of, inhabited and protected. Both precious jewels of nature and shelters, the Nests allude to an animal habitat. Human Nests offer us access to an expanded, animal consciousness, on which we depend. They are intimate spaces, bubbles for meditation. Through meticulous work with plant embroidery and natural fibres, the Nests are adorned with colourful decorative elements that give each one its own identity and aesthetic. These botanical adornments come to light and change over the seasons and years, with floral and colourful foliage emerging in resonance with the garden that hosts them, or from which they grew, who knows? The Nests are the fruit of a range of expertise and put above-ground cultivation techniques back at the service of nature in all her generosity, beauty and vitality. They offer visitors a sensitive, playful and poetic experience up close and in a relationship of otherness to plant life, in order to feel its benefits and to sow the seeds of positive action on different scales.
DESIGNER
Catherine COCHEREL
FRANCE
A native of Brittany, Catherine Cocherel studied visual arts in Quebec, with a specialisation in environmental art, acquainting herself with the region’s wide open spaces during her time there. Following her graduation, she settled in Marseille, between land and sea, and now has her studio at the Cité des Arts de la Rue (Street Arts Centre) as the Lézarap’art association’s Resident Associate Artist.
She has developed a unique artistic approach that draws on environmental art, land art, ecological art and performance. Her work is underpinned by notions of identity and habitat that re-examine our relationship with nature and our own nature.
Her creations started out as installations/performances, gradually transforming into more permanent sculptures so that audiences would no longer simply be spectators and nature not just an image but an ally, contributing to wellbeing and awareness of our ineradicable connection with it.
Catherine explores new technical pathways, learning the arts of metalwork and horticulture, developing her initial experiments during artist’s residencies and in her studios. She creates metal sculptures with integrated irrigation systems and then adorns them with meticulously worked embroideries of vegetation, showcasing the beauty and importance of nature.
City life has only served to reinforce her love of the plant kingdom and her determination that it should continue to be an integral part of her everyday life, finally making it her own Nest. She creates unique, immersive, intimate experiences by enabling us to get deep inside her Nests.
Her artist’s residencies, integration projects and workshops cultivate encounters and the sharing of practices and questions.
They are sources of sensory pleasure, celebration of life and the awakening of local and planetary ecological awareness that she makes substantial, immediate.
