In time and hardships comes the losses of the loved ones. Against all the beauty of new starts, departures are always uneasy; this uneasiness lead me to obsess about the emptiness I felt after every loss. May the loss comes from the death of a loved one, separations or disappearances it always raised in me a precise question; The lost was once found and traces of it’s past presence are still to be found, where and how?
I found the answer in daily objects; At a family gathering, after the death of a parent, one chair stayed empty, as if still used, nobody dared to sit on it, the chair, as an object became the trace of the once present person. I guess that’s at this precise moment that my chair obsession began. 

 

The chair does not belong to a given space. Out of it's particular context the chair still exists.The function and the symbolism given to the chair is not linked to a physical state. The chair is an emotional element. 

The chair is so associated with humans that when left empty it tends to indicate an absence, for example temporary when it is tilted against a table.But the empty chair can also be the expression of a prolonged or permanent absence. It is then used to refer to the person who occupied it and who is not longer there.

It is therefore, in such cases, both a symbol of absence but also of presence. Just like those empty places, the empty chair is a reminder of the missing people.The chair left empty is not only a sign of absence, but also the opportunity of an arrival.

An empty chair invites you to sit down, but the memory of those who sat in it always remains. The chair is memory.