Sophie Inard, a 37-year-old French artist from the Drôme, based in Paris, diverts objects related to power by wrapping them with crocheted stitches. With this gesture, she confronts the symbols of power and plays with contrasts: strength and vulnerability, spectacle and intimacy, individual and collective. Her works have been exhibited in France and internationally, notably at McNay ArtMuseum (Texas) and the concept store Merci (Paris).
Crochet, long associated with female domestic work, becomes here a tool for dialogue between worlds. By covering objects of sport, trophies or weapons, the artist questions the way in which our societies represent power, victory, protection. Each stitch weaves a link between past and present, between craftsmanship and performance, between what unites and what separates. Some of his large pieces are made in collaboration with retired women or away from employment, thus extending a collective and solidarity gesture.
Quartier Latin brings together objects of power: weapons, helmets, sports accessories - covered with crocheted mesh. By enveloping them, the artist transforms their primary function: what strikes, protects or intimidates slides into a form of fragility, almost of tenderness. The hook introduces an immediate shift: a technique derived from the domestic and feminine applied to symbols of power.
The series borrows from fashion codes. These objects become ‘pieces’, in the sense that they extend the body and tell a way of presenting oneself to the world. Between luxury, sport and violence, Quartier Latin puts into tension usually opposed registers to create a visual ambiguity - disturbing, sometimes funny, always inappropriate.
Each artwork bears a name, like the iconic fashion pieces to which proper names are attributed. Here, this gesture introduces a more intimate dimension: a constellation of presences, silhouettes, personal echoes. By associating these names with objects of power, the artist questions the way in which personal, family or cultural narratives continue to dress us - both literally and figuratively.
Quartier Latin proposes new narratives around contemporary icons: objects of authority are now vulnerable, symbols are diverted, a game between care and violence, gentleness and threat.
