Excerpt from the exhibition text:

For her installation at KOMMET, Gisèle Gonon draws on her personal history, evoking peasant and queer lives in rural areas. Inspired by the medieval heritage of Montbrun-les-Bains, she reinterprets the traditional standard, a symbol of rallying and collective identity, to display the struggles of the LGBTQIA+ community on a protective tarpaulin. The latter is adorned with lavender motifs, a purple plant emblematic of both the Drôme provençale region and the queer community. Gisèle Gonon integrates the tie-rod key, an element used to consolidate the structure of a building, which here becomes a metaphor for resistance and the bonds of a community to be preserved. This motif is continued in the finials, whose design is also inspired by the aesthetics of the Echinops ritro, a hermaphroditic flower commonly known as the “blue sea urchin” found around the residence. The soundtrack accompanying this banner gives voice to those projecting new narratives in the countryside, inscribing these testimonies in a landscape that can be perceived as inhospitable. Through this work, Gisèle Gonon affirms the possibility of a queer identity in the countryside, opening up a space where they can flourish.

Émilie d’Ornano & Livia Tarsia in Curia