The title of this series, Nous ne notons pas les fleurs, is taken from a dialogue in Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1943), where a geographer tells the Little Prince that geographers do not record flowers in their maps because, unlike the earth, flowers are ephemeral.
Each map installation in this series is made of colourful growing flowers and other ephemeral materials that are locally relevant (both physically and conceptually), and is subjected to a process. In this process, the map becomes a site for a participatory performance in which the map’s borders are constantly modified through audience participation. This challenges the notion that maps are frozen and borders are static.
In each work in the Fleurs series, the setup always involves one or more sets of 1 surveillance camera recording video that is processed to be shown on 2 monitors. At least one of the cameras is placed above the site, to capture a bird’s eye view of the map with the participants in it, but at the same time is recording what is happening beneath. One of the monitors shows a live stream from the camera (what is happening now, also serving as a navigational tool), and a time lapse version of the same footage (what has happened in the past, and how we get to this point).
The previous works in the series are Nous ne notons pas les fleurs, Patna (2009), Nous ne notons pas les fleurs, Singapore (2010), Nous ne notons pas les fleurs, Jakarta (2010), Nous ne notons pas les fleurs, Fort Ruigenhoek (2011), Nous ne notons pas les fleurs, Gwangju (2012). Nous ne notons pas les fleurs, Leiden is the 6th in this series.
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