Josée Pedneault

Created during a residency in Paris, the project Pour que tu ne m’oublies pas gathers photographs of amorous graffiti that Josée Pedneault found, catalogued and retranscribed to their respective locations on a map, thereby recreating a topography of the city using the traces left by lovers. In this project the artist applies a quasi-scientific inventory method to an ordinary and universal action. For, even though it seeks to endure, graffiti is in fact ephemeral. This quest is therefore unrealistic from the outset. 

The 175 photographs of graffiti, shown in various stages of degradation depending on their age, lead us to realize that, regardless of the support and technique, ­graffiti does not last: park benches are repainted, bark heals, cement crumbles. The accumulation of images makes us reconsider this gesture, which hence appears as an unrelenting and hopeless battle against time.