Jospin’s Forêt Palatine has an instant wow factor: at 380cm x 680cm it almost filled the wall in the Hayward Gallery1. That it is a forest is obvious, but its immense structure becomes increasingly uncanny the more one examines it. The layers produce a perspective that goes beyond the structure’s physical depth, which is barely one metre. This is largely down to how Jospin manipulated the substrate’s materiality – layering multiples of cardboard sheets, then gluing them together so they become large blocks that are then worked into with knives, tools such as electric drills and, simply, hands to cut and rip open the layers. This physical construct for narrative invites, as she puts it, “… layers of interpretation” that also tells the story of cardboard’s materiality.
"I like the idea [of taking] this industrial material and putting it back to its origin, which is the forest. The forest is a very powerful subject when you start working on it, because it’s something that talks to everybody. You have so many myths about journey or finding the truth… it’s an image of the mind, an image of being lost, or finding your way.” Jospin2
‘The journey’ is a strong element within the context of my work, which compares the mental state of the Covid-housebound adult with that of the young child who is constrained by the home, parents and anxieties when trying to fit into the wider world. The child, through using found materials such as cardboard boxes to construct a den (their safe place), embarks on a journey of coping with and understanding the real world; similarly, the adult, seeking hope beyond the confines of the home during lockdown, uses packaging from online purchases to create miniature pop-up scenarios and is, in the process, transported to another world of their own making, in the process coming to terms with reality.
1 Shown at ‘Among the Trees’, 1 August to 31 October 2020, Hayward Gallery, London
2 Jospin, Eva, ‘Among the Trees: Eva Jospin’, Hayward Gallery, https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/blog/videos/among-trees-eva-jospin - accessed 25 February 2022
Eva Jospin’s monumental Foret Palatine, shown at the Hayward Gallery, 2020. Photo Shirley A
The side view of Foret Palatine reveals it to be less than 1m deep, a surprise given the perspective the work appears to have when viewed face on. Photo Shirley A