Jules und Rita, donators| Plantse à dékopâ | Leytron 2011
The participatory project was realized through invitation from the State School of Art of Valais (ECAV) in collaboration with the commission of Safeguarding of Patrimony- Leytron (SPL), supported by the University of Applied Sciences of Western Switzerland (HES-SO) in collaboration with the foundation Château Mercier.
The project PLANTSE À DÉKOPÂ [patois|french: planche á découper english: cutting board] revolves principally around the questions of cultural identity and the transmission of patrimony from generation to generation. The artistic material/medium used to discuss this complex, is the plantse à dékopȃ – an object of daily life used in cooking which conserves and memorizes their owner’s history and whose value is effected through use.
The plantse à dékopâ accompanies us in our quotidian life, our actions transform and mark their surfaces and register lines, evoking both moments of happiness and conviviality as well as times of worry and pain. The plantse à dékopâ memorizes its owner’s life life in mute witness. It holds the memories of people and conditions of life that can be awoken and told, communicating a personal history
Performance: barbara caveng | Leah Anderson | Michael Röhrenbach ©SPL, Sauvegarde Patrimoine
Not only the wooden pieces- some of them could nearly be considered as antiquities – are memorizing cultural history, also the boards made from synthetic material are witnesses of the social changes of ‘modern life’.
The core of the project is the collection of around 120 cutting boards of the inhabitants of Leytrons [485m above sea level] with its hamlet Les Moulins, Produit, Montagnon, Les Places, Le Four, Dugny, Morthey und Lui Teise, up to Ovronnaz [1350m above sea level]. Ninethy percent of them have been handed over personally, most of them in the private atmosphere of the living room or the kitchen of the donnator, accompanied by personal narratives. Some boards have been placed in a public donation box.
During another two months the collection was transformed into two tables, each of them with the measures of 300 x 85 x 83cm. These tables offer two possibilities of arrangement: as square table referring to King Arthur’s Round Table or as a long table reminding of the Last Supper.