Stuff & Feelings is a research project that came together through a two-months residency at LE 18, Marrakech.
Departing from a wider interest in informal practices, the project’s focal entry was an attempt to trace and understand the economical, historical, social and emotional relationships moving, and moved by the specific practice of “transport et messagerie”, which dispatches packagings between Belgium (more generally European countries with a Moroccan diaspora) and Morocco. Analysing the series of tactics that allow to create space to navigate in between structures, the research delved into the local counterfeit of products as a relevant locus, as the latter performs influence, movement of ideas and shapes, balance of power, while questioning the value of things and destabilizing some common truths.
Creator Alessandro Michele, fashion signature for the Italian brand Gucci, whose labour force is primarily based in Italy (tax rate elevated at 25% of the gross product) though registered in Switzerland (tax rate at 8%), plays with copied topos, such as making overtly visible the logo or mistaking the spelling of Gucci itself by writing Guccy instead.
Twist of fate, François Pinault, former head of Kering, designated the historic customs la Punta della Dogana to host his contemporary art collection. This peculiar v-shaped building looks similar to the logo «à vie» of the Algerian brand Splendid. Dedicated to cosmetics, they created a fluid identity made on copying Chanel, Yves Saint-Laurent, Pierre Cardin, l’Oréal, Veet, Nivea, Axe…
In this framework, the metaphor of the parasite in conflict and sometimes symbiosis with the organism it evolves in, leads the intervention. A series of pieces are scattered, absent and present ; in and out the art space in various temporalities.
Link to website
The residency program was supported by the Flanders Government - department CJM (Culture, Youth and Media).
