Rachel Labastie : “Neck restraint”, Ceramic Museum of Rouen

Echoing the exhibition Slavery, Norman memories, Rouen, the reverse side of prosperity at the Industrial Museum of the Corderie Vallois (May 10 – September 17, 2023), the Ceramic Museum of Rouen welcomes a work by Rachel Labastie.

Since 2008, the artist has been using the motif of the shackle, inspired by the metal collars forged in the context of the repression of escape attempts by enslaved people (on plantations in America, the West Indies and the Mascarene archipelago). A device for restraining the body, depriving it of the freedom to move, the shackle also imposed the cruelty of its material, weight and flesh-wounding shapes. A negation of humanity, demeaning the slave who wore it to the ultimate rank of animal in a position of submission, the shackle remains today the sign of this extreme brutality. With “Neck restraint”, Rachel Labastie uses delicacy to highlight violence. The material used – immaculately white porcelain – also refers to the color of the skin of enslaved Afro-descendants.

PRACTICAL INFORMATION

Entrave de cou

10th May — 17th September 2023

Musée de la Céramique – Rouen
1 rue Faucon
76000 Rouen