STATE OF EMERGENCY / STATE OF FUSION
If we can't do it this way….let’s do it the other way

I use a "permanent phrase book", I mean I reiterate the same notions in my speeches and writings. One of them, taken from child psychology, simply states that some things exist for the simple fact you name them. It led me to the idea that the best way to write about Séverine Hubard would be to coin a title.

As I dare entitle this text "family matters in a state of emergency", let me explain why.
Séverine Hubard appeared nearly three years ago. She was reading… was it a book, a magazine or a catalogue? I can't remember. At that time, we were holding untimely meetings. She appeared with a rich array of procedures. I found her formal choices akin to mine, although the meanings of some of them still puzzle me… My interest was aroused.
We soon got to see some of her works, as well as the pictures of her installation "Lieu unique"; that work taught me that the act of building could entrap both the objects and the glance we cast on these objects.
She spoke -and still speaks- of patterns, decorative objects, and drawings that emerge from vestiges of decoration…she speaks of construction, assemblage, reconstruction…of the archaeology of waste (whether found, hunted for, or simply bought). She speaks….a little. She rather makes. And above all, she makes as a matter of urgency. A matter of urgency I find relevant as it speaks of a present we must twist to prevent the future to fall on our heads.
I learned then that Séverine had a sound knowledge of some notions of urban planning, and that she was well-equipped for the fight of the metaphor, the one we all fight.
To identify those who share the same interests and sincerity is not an easy task. Nor is it to be aware of the place, or to imagine the role they will take within the family. This title reveals much too complex to be accounted for in a few lines (…)

I like to call Séverine a "fusion artist", because she makes sculptures where, with a boundless courage, she explores the notions of pedestal, model, or point of view in a variety of forms. Fusion sometimes comes under a state: the state of fusion. To me, fusion, infusion, and confusion border on each other. Far from echoing morals, the words confusion, heat, and hybridization of sources are human qualities which generate new techniques able to bring about unexpected developments :
- to melt the decorative with the constructive generates electric steam
- to engulf the air all around so as to feed oneself at high speed makes one grow
- to heat children's games and mega-productions together in the same furnace produces fertile displacements
- to transfer techniques used by the carpenter or cabinet-maker to the construction of artistic spaces result in untameable architectures.
- to challenge the spectator's point of view again and again, to probe his imbalance in front of (or inside) an unbalanced work, provokes a wonderful molecular strain.

Indeed, she engulfs, transfers, heats, melts and challenges. She reaches the fusion point...and the temperature rises.

Once, during the festival Espèces d’Interzones, Séverine witnessed the premature destruction of one of her works (premature because the construction had not yet reached a public stage). It was during the night. We were running out of time and couldn’t re-built it all. After a brief silence shared by the assistants, she came up with a sentence that throws a light on her way of working : “if we can't do it this way….let’s do it the other way”.

Francisco Ruiz de Infante translated by Anni Latimier