Juliette Ezaoui developed The Worm's Theatre as an outcome from her work generated during her time at High House on their artist's residency programme in West Norfolk. The focus of her installation is perfect for GroundWork's programme of environmental art and the installation animates the ground floor of the gallery beautifully.
The 'theatre' comprises a series of interconnected installations that refer to the unseen processes involved in the enrichment of the soil by earth worms. This sounds dull, but isn't. The Worm's Theatre is disarming in its playful intent, in an intricate, thoughtful presentation, placing worms as the unsung heros critical to soil fertility. Juliette has a remarkable approach to her materials – terracotta figures among wire and wooden structures, employing a lucid visual language, intelligently matched to conceptual inventiveness. So if you haven't seen it yet, you only have one more Saturday to do so!
Installation detail of The Worm's Theatre by Juliette Ezaoui at GroundWork Gallery
‘The Worm’s Theatre’ takes us on a journey into a subterranean world. Immersed in the life of the soil’s inhabitants, this is an installation which lets their interconnectivity emerge on the surface. Through the playful medium of a theatre, it shows us the networks that shape the materiality of the soil and, with it, our landscape. Juliette made the installation’s surrounding framework of timber structures, from fencing materials once used in the landscape. They form architectural spaces and portals where the intimacy of all these resonant connections can unfold.
Through poetical theatre scenes, the work seeks a re-enchantment to bring back meaningful ways of connection with the non-human. It celebrates our eye as a tool to see the magic that surrounds us.
Quiet acts of mutualisation, transformation, and exchange have been restored here, inspired by the spiritual clay forms from Cypriot Minoan culture. Through this symbolic association deep in ancient history, the artist aims for the sculptures to elevate the non-human – the more than human – to a kind of sacred status.
More about the artist: Juliette Ezaoui
Juliette Ezaoui’s practice investigates the complex inter-relationships between living and non-living, and human and non-human systems that generate the soil. Through drawings, sculpture, and immersive installations, she reveals soil as a material that builds our spatial environment, on which our collective survival is inherently dependent, and therefore as a deeply political materiality.
With a background in Interior Architecture, Organic Horticulture, and Fine Art, she sits herself at the intersection of these different systems of knowledge. She cross-pollinates them through art to create new ways of understanding. Scientific knowledge ends up in theatrical installations, religious drawings, or being merged in Bingo games.
© Text sourced from Groundwork Gallery
For more about Juliette Ezaoui and Groundwork Gallery click hereFor more about High House Residency programme click here
About the author
Paul Barratt
Paul Barratt started working in contemporary art galleries in 1989, having graduated in Fine Art from Goldmsith’s, London University. He initially worked at Anthony d’Offay Gallery, one of the contemporary art dealers, who dominated the London art market in the 80s and 90s. He was approached by the Lisson Gallery to be gallery manager for the influential art dealer Nicholas Logsdail. This was followed by a short period in New York at Gladstone Gallery, to work for visionary art dealer Barbara Gladstone, working with the artist and filmmaker Matthew Barney.
On his return to London, Paul secured a place on the postgraduate curatorial course at the Royal College of Art, to complete an MA. After graduation in 2001, he worked as an independent curator on several projects in Oslo, London, Brighton and Basel, before joining Paul Vater at his design agency Sugarfree in 2004. He has worked with Paul ever since.