Teurgoule is a culinary specialty from Normandy, made with rice and milk, flavored with cinnamon. This recipe, improvised at the end of the 18th century with the introduction of rice into the Norman bocage, is traditionally baked in the oven for several hours in a stoneware terrine. Its name, derived from local dialect, literally means “twisted mouth,” referring to the dessert’s paste-like texture. Beyond its texture, the defining feature of this dish undoubtedly lies in the slowness of its cooking.

An exhibition by Lucie Bombasaro & Mathilde Sevaux,

on an initiative of Paul Lepetit.

Lucie Bombasaro’s practice is transdisciplinary, combining drawing, installation, the creation of scenic devices, and participatory structures in which various forms of know-how drawn from craftsmanship, DIY practices, and cooperative exchange coexist. These installations, at the crossroads of art and everyday life, form a constellation of imaginary spaces structured around a narrative that weaves together collective memory and play.

Mathilde Sevaux lives in a small village in the Manche, a pleasant place to live, though winters there are long. Surrounded by woods, it is this material wood that she works with primarily, both to keep warm and because it does her good. As with making a good teurgoule, this work is slow. It allows time to be momentarily suspended.

CLEARING THE WOODS

Crackling, wood paneling

The bundled cord of wood catches fire

Noise canceling headphones, ear pressed to the pallet

It hums, then

I discover another color

The smell of sap

Surrounded

I can read the knots

“How long?”

Weeping willow

Cut

Torn from your balance

You waver

The notched post, at the top of the fir grove

Under my feet, wood chips

The copse on the pyre

And the log… of Christmas

The billet, charcoal stick

You are massive

Interrupted sawdust, I hold on

It sheds its bark, you are chained

Beneath the beam, fascinated

We perch on your branch

In a corner, a bouquet

They gather your essence

And carve you, cut you, deadwood

Birch, Baobab, Bamboo, Oak, Loquat, Bitter orange, Cypress

So close to Maple

I am in the Beech and beneath the Holly, not the Hydrangea

The Kumquat brushes the Laurel

Molding the bundle,

The embers come alive

Planting

Beneath the dark sound

The bush

She replants you

Without a pot

One hundred meters of skin

Mathilde Sevaux