Dream team, it’s when you are in Venice, kind of stressed and have no warm cloths but
@mariemaertens gives you a gorgeous coat
@cha_simon a lovely scarf
@margauxbrugvin cooks healthy food
gongau & Martin make you laugh
@camille_bardin listens to you whining
& @marcbeyneysonier gets you drinks in the evening
4,5 days in Venice, 55km, 7 shootings/recordings, 8 exhibitions, 5 pavilions, way too much of bad coffee and excellent cornetti à la créma and many publications to come
Annual celebratory post about my green eyed Pooh-Pooh d’amour who turned 15 yesterday
This daddy’s girl (she does prefer Sergey to me) holds my entire mental health in her paws: when she is healthy and happy, the world illuminates, she makes me laugh and brings so much joy, if I am not okay, it’s enough to take her in my arms, she’ll take her usual frog position and most probably bite my on a cheek and everything feels much better; when she is sick, the world collapses.
7 of those years, she lives with a kidney failure and a whole constellation of heath problems that follow (our new vet is absolutely fascinated by her case) and we live dealing with it building our life around her care because what’s having an animal means. All in!
Happy birthday мои санные лапки 🐾
The last trip to Istanbul made me realize for the first time something that should have always been obvious to me: I am 50% of Turkic origin. My dad is Chuvash, a Turkic ethnic group, a branch of the Oğurs which speaks Chuvash language, the only surviving member of the Oghur branch of Turkic languages which I have never learned unfortunately.
Maybe it partly explains my absolute love of Istanbul, Turkish people, culture and food
The last day of the year was awful and comical at the same time. A deep shit day. Literally. To the point that it deserves a post.
We had to come back to Paris earlier because Kota started to have blood in her poo, but also I found an injured pigeon (if you think I am crazy, I don’t care. For me every life matters, I cannot just go by), the only center accepting it is @faune_alfort located across the road from home ! So at 7am we got on a train. An hour after Kota decided to poo. In the train. It was bad. She got coved in poo, we tried to clean her and ended up both covered in her poo. One stinky family of three 💩💩💩
It’s not the end of the story: when we arrived home, we realized we cannot unblock the security alarm in the apartment and were stuck in front of our door. Tired, worried and in desperate need of a bath. But all is well: we managed to get home, pigeon is at the wild life center & Kota is bathed (us too btw) & will go to the vet on Friday.
I am very proud of us: we went through these ordeals with a lot of humour and self irony that I hope we will bring with us to 2026. Happy new year dear all!
The week of art, two actually, finishes for me tonight with a projet particularly close to my heart: Prix Marcel Duchamp.
For the last 4 months we have been working on producing interviews with 4 nominated artists. This project is my baby that I have followed from A to Z and I am very grateful for this experience, for collaborating with @centrepompidou 3ed year in a raw and this time also with @museedartmodernedeparis , for meeting the 4 artists who are all winners for me: @xieleiparis@evanielsenstudio@bondi_bianca & @lionel_sabatte 🤍
I am very proud of this collaboration and the videos we have produced!
During one of our hikes we met a group of 70 year olds who suddenly and clearly helped me define who and where I want to be at their age.
It’s fair to say that it was one of the most difficult hikes of this year: 1200 meter elevation, walking on a steep ridge with a trail barely marked and crossing big patches of snow before 4 hours later arriving to a mountain pass opening an abyss with a stunning view of Italy. Difficult even for us and we did not even go further and finish the trail : it would entailed a 1000 meter almost 90° descent with cables to the Italien part of the hike. But they did. I mean these people are my heroes for doing such a difficult and technical hike at their age.
That’s exactly what I want to do when I am 70: hiking difficult trails and be in shape to do so.
It’s Kota’s 14th birthday today and a special edition of tradition celebratory post: her settling on me comfortably while I sleep, probably grounding me and expressing her love by doing biscuits.
My endless unconditional love!
#kotabirthdaygirl
5 days in Osaka with only a couple of hours to discover the city feel like a dream which already far far away. Looking forward to going back to this place with very strange but amazing energy some day
On this snowy day I would like talk about the new addition to our collection, Hemo and Globine snowball by @benoitpieron
When I was 6 years old I got very sick and was hospitalised. I spent 2 weeks in a sterile box all alone. Most of the time I was delusional and in a scary state of half nightmarish sleep and half awake. The rest of the time I was reading Japanese fairy tales, pretty scary stuff too. My parents and sister couldn’t visit, I was contagious. They would come every day and would stand under my window. I was on the 6th or 7th floor. We could just stare at each other and wave. I wanted to go home so bad.
I left the hospital with an immense sense of relief. However, for a year or so I couldn’t be exposed to the sun or eat anything unhealthy. I was obviously craving both.
6 years later I got depressed and somehow the hospital turned from an awful & boring isolation ward to a safe place, a dream. All I wanted was to find myself in a sterile white hospital box, isolated from people. I stoped sleeping and started to imitate sickness sometimes hurting myself. I guess it was a depression episode with a hint of Munchausen. My mum, worried sick, would take me to all kinds of doctors. At some point I just stopped going to school. I simply couldn’t be around other people. My parents have never understood what happened. What an irony: my dad is a psychologist. Then again I didn’t either at the time. One day they found out that I haven’t been to school in months. I had to go back and in a weekend I had to catch up with everything I missed. That’s probably why I still write with mistakes in Russian despite my top notch education. Miraculously I got over the whole thing without any help.
This depressive state came back again when I was 23 and there was another battle to gain mental stability in my life, which actually was perfect at the time: dating Sergey, working for an arts foundation, gaining my live, and pretty much enjoying it.
This long and personal text is to say that I have always admired Benoît’s work, since 2013 when I first saw his bed, and I absolutely relate to it & love it. Heads up to @galeriesultana , thank you
The 🔮 is in great company!
