gothic pastoral: Manon Torné-Sistéro and Joy Lavigne

Merry-go-round, Shake off, Techno power, Crazy Jump and Ride to happiness.

Go to the carnival, Merry’s hand in that of his crush. Two turns on itself, Merry-round in the effervescence of the night. Fluorescent drinks flow to the floor. The neon lights burn his eyes. A slightly too violent fang in your ice cream stick is the brain freeze. Thirty seconds, static, Merry is trapped in the color of blood.

Merry lurks,
Merry tramples,
Merry gets tangled up and chokes.

Joy Lavigne and Manon Torné-Sistéro invite us to take Merry’s hand, to look her straight in the eye, to empathize with her state of co-dependence on Others. Here, the inter-species symbiosis echoes the spinning top carousels. Merry subsists in this cog that never stops. Adrenaline and dizziness permeate everything she touches, everything she sees. Merry takes us into this absurd party where the liminal zones between the real and the superficial vanish.

Merry-go-round until the brain freeze wears off.

- Alexia Abed, Manon Torné-Sistéro, Joy Lavigne

Merry dances, neither without joy nor without pain. In her arms,
fettered, then stuck in a refrain.
She broods, up there, her contagious rubies.
Carrying within her a burden, oneself would throw away with no farewell.
Genes and times gone by, that heart probably ignores,
To the point of recovering.
Memories weigh on the savant’s shoulders
When the enthousiast chooses,
To poison, the remedies.

Merry was wandering and because of her nature.
Could not stand beside the silence
For her scarlet tint leaves a soft mark
Which resounds on the ice of no coincidence
When one hears her footsteps sinking in the night
Some dream, say she's running away
Others feel invaded
That they hasten in procession
To pick her up at dawn
The innocent, without a sound
Had melted into the water

Merry goes to great lengths to keep the table a welcome warmth and keeps herself decent
When they dismissed her to talk for a moment
Of those bonds that are revered, of those bonds that one wants to be stable
Then the aforementioned fellows exchanged a venom
Preventing all members from seeing the drama coming
She offered as a dessert to end the feast
That dreadful silence which the accident generates
Was it really peace that fate broke
That such a vain gesture should drag them into this blizzard?

Merry lies down under the feet that she waters
Sighs at the sight of the balcony
Tired of wearing rose’s beauty
To please her masters, in a vacuum
Their domestic love nourishes her, defends her
But deprives her of the life that is lived outside
A strange feeling suddenly seizes her
Feeling like a parasite, a guest, in turn
Never really at home, on the edge of the city
She saw herself growing like the ivy of a rampart or a bridge.

- Timothy Charrier, Opera Sierra, Julie Lavigne, Manon Torné-Sistéro

Carence, Joy Lavigne and Manon Torné-Sistero, 2023
39 x 52 x 153 cm
Granita machine, blood, grenadine, steel, carpet

Cold sweats, stars in her eyes, she is insatiable. Deficiency dances in the arms of his partner, his hands frozen by the cold, the granulated sugar at the edge of his lips. Engine running and ice crushed, Carence questions the possible relationship of human-machine romance. Both in its toxic relationship and in its interdependence, it explores this idea of controlled organic domestication. While the blood mixes, until saturation, the grenadine continues to turn without stopping, establishing a tension between violence, absurdity and vulnerability.

Gabrielles, Joy Lavigne and Manon Torné-Sistéro, 2023

76 x 70 x 17 cm (2 identical pieces)
Steel, planters, primroses, blood, cochineal, carpet

Born on the balcony of Manon and Joy, Gabrielles are mutant primroses who grew up and were nourished by the blood of their two mothers. The veins soaked, they testify to the desire to transgress their nature, to cross it and to be crossed by it while shaking up the notions of identity. Gabrielles makes that today we have become responsible for each other, and those, until the flowers fade.