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Pas de la Saleté, de l’Histoire

Sculpture, Installation, Vidéo, Performance
2023

A black suit was entirely painted white, then worn in public space and deliberately rubbed against dirty urban surfaces in an attempt to darken it as much as possible with accumulated grime. The process—ultimately incomplete—raises questions about what is considered dirt, wear, or natural aging.

Watching the video and seeing the suit, one realizes that getting dirty takes a lot more effort than we often imagine—it’s a deliberate, painstaking process that challenges the typical, effortless nature of cleanliness. The act becomes a gesture of contact and transformation, connecting the human body to the surfaces of the city.

The image of the suit—often associated with formality, authority, and corporate power—stands in stark contrast to the act of soiling it deliberately. This tension undermines conventional associations of cleanliness with respectability, and of the suit with control or discipline, suggesting instead vulnerability, entropy, and resistance.

The title, «Pas de la Saleté, de l’Histoire.» (Not Dirt, History), was inspired by a remark heard during an internship with a Japanese kimono maker, who described the dust found in the pockets of trousers not as dirt, but as history—a trace of time. What is often dismissed as unclean or insignificant becomes here a visible record of presence and use. Each stain becomes a document; each mark, a fragment of narrative.

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