Ekaterina Yakovleff invited artist and architect Lucie Palombi to the Livart gallery for a discussion about her artistic practice. Over the course of an afternoon, they discussed travel, personal experiences and lithographic techniques. Their exchanges illustrate the intimacy innate in the artist’s practice, across the borders and oceans she has crossed. Take a moment to reflect on this unique encounter, which invites us to re-examine our relationship with the environment and with matter:

What drives you to travel?

The idea of cultivating my “right to wander”. This expression comes from the writer, explorer and journalist Isabelle Eberhardt (1877-1904) – and I discovered it thanks to the astrophysicist and poet Aurélien Barrau. When you travel, sometimes you have an experience that may seem insignificant, but which transforms you through and through. But that experience has to have the space to exist. The right to wander is the right to wander away from what’s been mapped out in advance, in a world where we have to anticipate everything, put everything in a box or under a label, and where performance is over-valued. It’s the right to wander for as long as you can (even if it’s not profitable, even if you don’t see any short-term benefit, Barrau stresses). In short, according to Isabelle Eberhardt, “[…] vagrancy is freedom, life along the roads is liberty”. And it seems to me that this right to roam is becoming increasingly urgent.

At the end of your life, what will you remember? When I was in Egypt, I thought of the pharaohs who took all their possessions with them. I feel like I’m taking with me the experiences I’ve had.

How did you feel about living with 5 strangers for 1 month aboard a sailboat?

I was apprehensive about being in close proximity, behind closed doors. In the middle of nowhere, you can’t escape. If there’s a conflict, you can’t go sulking out on deck, you’ll freeze. In the end, it all came together very naturally. There’s no tension. There’s no shower on board, so we know each other well, and that brings us closer together. I was lucky enough to find myself with some very nice people who cooked very well. That made for a very pleasant experience.

Read the full article for the rest of the interview.

Entrevue avec l’artiste Lucie Palombi
Entrevue et rédaction par Ekaterina Yakovleff