eL Seed

A project of contemporary creation in Aubusson tapestry materializes itself thanks to the involvement of the Cité de la tapisserie on the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) market: C'est l’aube, by eL Seed.

Amongst his mission of economic and artistic support to the tapestry field, the Cité internationale engaged a market research in the U.A.E. in 2016, with the hiring of a Business International Volunteer in charge of creating a contact network and determine the important artists, in the eyes of the U.A.E., likely to be weaved.

The Creusois Senator Jean-Jacques Lozach, then President of the Cité internationale, the Cité Director Emmanuel Gérard, so as a Commission of the Creusois Trade and Industry Chamber flew thereafter to the U.A.E. to carry this mission out. Several projects are in the process of being realized, some of them will allow the presence of the Aubusson tapestry in the most prestigious places of the Emirates.

A project caught in particular the attention of the Cité internatinale to integrate the contemporary section of its public collection “Musée de France”. It is about a model proposed by the French-Tunisian artist eL Seed, settled in Dubai. The Cité internationale wished to acquire a model of this artist and have it weaved within the scope of the regional Funding for the creation of contemporary tapestry.

This project, totally representative of the new engaged process to develop tapestries orders from the Emirates, is then initiated by an exemplary work of the bridge creation between the French artistic profession and the contemporary expression of an artist coming from the Muslim world, in the following of the UNESCO labelling.

Moreover, eL Seed’s work is in line with the wall art approach in the perspective of a future implication of this artist in the tapestry.

Wishing his future tapestry to refer strongly to the French tradition, he realized a first model by calligraphing one lucky phrase of Jean Lurçat’s: “It is the dawn of a new world, a world where man would not be a wolf for man” engraved on his academician sword.

Presented to the directors of the Arabic World Institute, this project received support and written encouragements on behalf of Jack Lang, President of the IMA.

The oil on canvas C’est l’aube is destined to become a weaving of 2,50 m x 2,50 m.

The artist came to Aubusson in October for a working and exchange session around the weaved transcript of its work. Accompanied by a cartoon maker and the conservator of the Cité internationale, he determined a very precise bill of specifications containing his intentions for the weaving, the works of its collections being suitable to serve as reference (notably Triangles Blancs from Alexander Calder). A part of the work has been selected to act as a base for a weaving sample, on which the weaving workshops would be judged within the scope of adjudications launched in the beginning of the year. The “fall from the loom” of C’est l’aube, el Seed’s first tapestry and presaging a long-lasting collaboration, is considered for the 2018 autumn. The artist will be in charge of his work’s diffusion to the collectors and museums, in preparation for re-weavings in the limit of 7 still possible copies.

Born in France in 1981, eL Seed settled his creation studio in the U.A.E. eL Seed’s calligraphic compositions call not only for the words and their signification, but for their movement as well, which brings the spectator into a surrealist universe. eL Seed comes up, through his work, to subjects, which seem contradictory, but which reflect the complex reality of man and the world, in which we leave.

eL Seed established his work in the public space, galleries and institutions all around the world. From New York streets to Rio de Janeiro favelas, from Cap slums to Paris buildings, his contemporary approach tends to bring peoples, cultures and generations together.

In 2017, eL Seed won the UNESCO Sharjah Price for Arabic culture. He is named “Global Thinker” in 2016 by the periodical Foreign Policy for its “Perception” project in the Ragman neighbor in Cairo. In 2013, he collaborates with Louis Vuitton by decorating the famous “Foulard d’artiste” of his calligraphies.

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Discover the other works of eL Seed on its website